Russia resumes manned Soyuz flights after crash

A Russian spacecraft carrying three astronauts - two Russians and one American - has launched successfully from Kazakhstan, BBC News reported.

They are the first to travel on a Russian Soyuz craft since a similar unmanned rocket carrying cargo crashed shortly after launch in August.

All manned space travel was suspended after that crash for almost three months.

The astronauts are on their way to the International Space Station (ISS). The rocket lifted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan's snow-covered steppes at 08.14 (04:14 GMT).

Once safely in orbit, the three astronauts gave a thumbs-up signal to cameras on board the craft and said: "Everything is normal and we are feeling fine". Applause broke out at the mission control centre in a northern Moscow suburb.

The BBC's Daniel Sandford in Moscow says the Soyuz has historically been a relatively safe way of getting into space.

But on 24 August, a similar Russian-built Soyuz rocket taking supplies to the space station crashed soon after launch. That led to the human space flight programme being suspended until now.

But in their final comments to the media before the launch, the three men insisted they were confident in the technology and had no concerns.

"We don't have any black thoughts. We have faith in our equipment," Anton Shkaplerov, 39, was quoted by Russian media as saying.

Shkaplerov and fellow Russian Anatoly Ivanishin, 42, are making their first maiden space voyages. For veteran Nasa astronaut Dan Burbank, 50, it is his first voyage on board a Soyuz spacecraft.