Watch live as Russian crew launches to International Space Station

Three Russian cosmonauts are due to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday.

If successful, the launch will continue a two-decade-plus shared Russian-US presence aboard the orbiting spacecraft, despite heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying the team is set to lift-off at 3:55pm GMT from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, beginning a journey to the ISS that will take around three hours.

Soyuz commander Oleg Artemyev will lead the team, with two spaceflight rookies, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov, also on-board.

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