The MS-27 craft, which was decorated to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, took off at 10:47 am (0547 GMT) and entered orbit a few minutes later, according to televised images shown by Roscosmos.

The capsule docked to the Russian segment of the orbital station at 0858 GMT, after a journey of around three hours.

The vessel carried Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky, as well as NASA astronaut Jonny Kim.

They are due to carry out 50 scientific experiments in space, Roscosmos said, before returning to Earth on December 9.

A record of around 2,500 tourists watched the launch from Baikonur, the agency added.

Russia has been renting the site from Kazakhstan since the fall of the Soviet Union more than 33 years ago.

Moscow pays Almaty $115 million a year and has a contract until 2050.

Space is one of the few areas of cooperation between Russia and the United States that survived after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

The return to the White House of US President Donald Trump, however, thawed tensions.

As part of the slew of sanctions imposed on Russia since its invasion, Western countries ceased partnerships with Roscosmos, but Soyuz remains one of the few spacecrafts capable of reaching the ISS.

Russia's space programme, which for decades has been a source of great pride for the country, has been suffering for years from a chronic lack of funding, corruption scandals and failures such as the Luna-25 probe in August 2023.

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ISS A/S