BREAKING NEWS

Russian rocket blasts off to space with an American astronaut and two Russians on board

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday for the International Space Station (ISS), Russia's Roscosmos space agency said.

The Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft was carrying Russians Sergei Ryzhikov and Alexei Zubritsky and NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim.

It is expected to dock at the ISS at 0904 GMT.