Moscow, December 3: Russia successfully launched its first manned voyage to the International Space Station on Monday since a mission in October that was aborted mid-air because of a rocket malfunction. According to NASA, Russian-made Soyuz rocket was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and have safely reached orbit.

"NASA astronaut Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency, and Oleg Konenenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos have begun their six-hour trip to the orbital laboratory where they will live and work for the next six-and-a-half months," the space agency said. Saint-Jacques will be the first Canadian astronaut to visit the space station since Chris Hadfield.

Saint-Jacques joked that he had received so much training ahead of the flight “that I felt at the end that I could build a Soyuz in my backyard", reported Reuters. NASA's McClain, who served in Iraq, said that training to spacewalk resembled the sport since it demands “grit, toughness, mental focus, and more”.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 03, 2018 06:15 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).