Busy times ahead for space center in Kazakhstan

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - The International Space Station is set for some heavy traffic over the coming days in a tightly packed schedule that kicked off Friday when a Russian rocket transporting three astronauts blasted off from a space center in southern Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz craft carrying California native Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko soared from the Baikonur cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan in a carefully regimented operation that has been perfected over the decades.

At the scheduled time, powerful booster rockets shattered the stillness of the immense and arid Kazakh steppe, propelling the Soyuz heavenward atop an iridescent flow of flames against the limpid blue sky.