Despite severely strained U.S.-Russian foreign relations, an American astronaut joined two Russian cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz spacecraft in Kazakhstan and rocketed into orbit Wednesday on a two-orbit flight to the International Space Station.

With commander Sergey Prokopyev at the controls, flanked on the left by co-pilot Dmitry Petelin and on the right by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, the Soyuz 2.1a rocket roared to life at 9:54 a.m. ET (6:54 p.m. local time) and smoothly climbed away from its firing stand at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

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