A Russian Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft launched toward the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, carrying two Russian cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut, according to a live broadcast of the event. The Soyuz 2.1a rocket lifted off from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome at 12:28 pm Moscow time (0928 GMT). The crew consists of Russian commander Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, on his second space mission, along with first-time space travelers cosmonaut Sergei Mikayev and NASA astronaut Christopher Williams. Following liftoff, the spacecraft is set to complete two orbits of Earth before automatically docking with the ISS’s Rassvet module at 12:38 GMT on Thursday. After docking, the crew will enter the ISS and is scheduled to remain there for the next eight months, with a planned return to Earth in late July 2026.