The Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, conducted the world’s first crew launch of 2018 this week ahead of a successful docking. The mission utilized the veteran Soyuz-FG rocket, atop which three crew members, two Americans and one Russian, departed for the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 17:44 UTC (13:44 EDT; 23:44 local time at Baikonur) Wednesday. Docking with the Station occurred on Friday after a two-day orbital rendezvous.
