Christopher Cassidy, Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner are on a six-month-long mission in orbit.

While coronavirusset raging on the Ground, three astronauts on their way out of the room.

Thursday, the trio, which consists of american Christopher Cassidy and Russian Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and blast off to The International Space station (ISS).

the Astronauts take, according to the AFP news agency off from the Russian spaceport Baikonur in Kazakhstan at 10.05 local time and hitting the ISS around six hours later.

The three men have spent the past month in quarantine to be sure not to take coronavirusset out to the space station.

– We have it great, said Christopher Cassidy on Wednesday at a press conference prior to the firing, according to news agency dpa.

Journalists had no access to the press conference due to fear of virussmitte.

Christopher Cassidy admitted that it was hard, and that he was “influenced by” not having his family close.

– instead of talking to some cameras, we would rather have spoken to some people.

– But we understand that the entire world is affected by the same crisis, he says, according to AFP.

the Astronauts are scheduled to spend 196 days out in space on board the ISS.

As part of the security measures they had three men than not say good-bye to their family.

the ISS is in orbit about the earth at 400 km altitude and is primarily staffed by american and Russian astronauts.

this is The first time that a manned mission using a rocket of the type Soyuz-2.1 is a to get into orbit.

The new rockets have been used in the unmanned missions since 2004.

Rockets are guided by a digital control system instead of the previous Soyuz rockets, who used an analog system.

Anatoly Ivanishin says that the new system is more independent and requires less manual control from the crew by accident.

/ritzau/