A Soyuz-2.1a space rocket carrying the S.P. Korolyov spacecraft (Soyuz MS-21) with a crew of three - Oleg Artemiev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov - blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome on Friday evening, a TASS correspondent reports from Mission Control. Cosmonaut Denis Matveyev will be TASS’s second special correspondent on board the ISS. This reported by TASS.

The spacecraft will be docked with the module Prichal after orbiting the Earth just twice at about 22:05 Moscow time. It will be the first docking with Prichal after its integration with the ISS. For the first time in many years all three professional cosmonauts going to the ISS are Russian.

The spacecraft was named after renowned Soviet spacecraft designer, founder of crewed space programs Sergey Korolyov.

Artemiev, Matveyev and Korsakov will spend 195 days on the ISS to return to Earth on September 30.

During the space mission the crew is to stage more than 50 experiments in space biology and physiology, materials processing, cosmic ray physics and other fields. As Artemiev said, there will be seven spacewalks. One will be in cooperation with Italian astronaut Samantha Christoforetti, and all others with Denis Matveyev.