A Russian Soyuz rocket roared into orbit yesterday carrying Malaysia’s first spaceflyer and a veteran astronaut team to the International Space Station.
Space station commander Peggy Whitson, the first woman ever to lead an ISS mission, launched into space alongside veteran cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Malaysian astronaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. Their Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft rocketed into orbit at 9:22 a.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site on the steppes of Kazakhstan.