A Soyuz spaceship carrying two Russian and one American astronaut blasted off for the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday (May 15) after more than a month's delay over a problem with the hull of the Russian-built capsule.<br/> <br />NASA astronaut Joseph Acaba, veteran cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin, who is departing on his maiden space flight, launched in clear skies aboard the Soyuz TMA-04M rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0301 GMT (11:01p.m. EDT on Monday).<br/> <br />Three minutes into the flight, the crew members gave a thumbs-up signal to a camera on board the capsule.<br/> <br />An anchor inside Mission Control outside Moscow told assembled scientists and students that the three astronauts were feeling well.<br/> <br />The trio will berth early on Wednesday, joining Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA's Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers aboard the ISS, a $100 billion research complex orbiting about 240 miles (385 km) above Earth.<br/> <br />Since the retirement of the the U.S. space shuttle program last year, the United States is dependent on Russia to fly astronauts to the ISS, which costs the nation $60 million per person.<br/> <br />Moscow hopes a smooth mission will begin to restore confidence in its once-pioneering space program after a string of launch mishaps last year, including the failure of a mission<br/> <br />touted as post-Soviet Russia's interplanetary debut.<br/> <br />Tuesday's flight was delayed from March 30 to allow Russia's partly state-owned space contractor, RKK Energia, to prepare a new capsule for launch after an accident during pressure tests damaged the Soyuz crew capsule.
