SOYUZ MISSION

Dec. 4, 2018

A Soyuz rocket carrying Russian, American and Canadian astronauts took off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan and reached orbit, in the first manned mission to ISS since a failed launch in October.

About:

Soyuz is a series of spacecraft designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau in the 1960s that remains in service today. The Soyuz spacecraft is launched on a Soyuz rocket.
All Soyuz spacecraft are launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The Soyuz is the only means of reaching the International Space Station (ISS) since the U.S. retired the space shuttle in 2011.
The recent launch was the first manned launch for the Soviet-era Soyuz since October 11, when a rocket carrying Russia’s Aleksey Ovchinin and U.S. astronaut Nick Hague failed just minutes after blast-off, forcing the pair to make an emergency landing.
The failed launch — the first such incident in Russia’s post-Soviet history — raised concerns about the state of the Soyuz programme.

Source : The Hindu