CANADA: A Russian-made Soyuz rocket, carrying an international crew of astronauts bound for the International Space Station (ISS), lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
The Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft is manned by Sergei Volkov, one of Russia’s veteran cosmonauts, and rookie astronauts Aidyn Aimbetov of Kazakhstan’s Kazcosmos and Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency (ESA).
Mogensen is the first citizen of Denmark ever to go into space, while Aimbetov is the third person from his country to make the voyage. Aimbetov was chosen to replace British singer Sarah Brightman after she decided to pull out of the mission in June.
“It’s a great honor for me to represent Denmark as an astronaut,” Mogensen said during an interview last month.
According to the ESA, Mogensen will test new equipment on exercise bikes that were made in Denmark. The exercise bikes, which were delivered to the ISS in 2001, are used by astronauts to battle the negative effect of weightlessness.
Aimbetov is carrying samples of traditional Kazakh cheese and dried mare’s milk, known as kymyz, to orbit. He is also expected to test the effects of space radiation on the human brain using a special dosimeter.
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