ESA's French astronaut Claudie Haignere will become the first European woman to visit the International Space Station (ISS) after she lifts off from Baikonur on board a Russian Soyuz vehicle on Sunday for a ten-day space mission.

The Soyuz rocket that will carry Claudie Haignere to space was rolled to the launch pad at sunrise on Friday. Photo: Energia

The Soyuz will dock with the International Space Station, approximately 48 hours after lift-off, on Tuesday. Before its arrival, the members of the Expedition Three crew already on board the station - Frank Culbertson, station commander, Vladimir Dezhurov, Soyuz commander, and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin - will change the location of the Soyuz capsule currently attached to the station to clear the port for the arrival of the visiting crew.

Alongside Claudie Haignere, two Russian cosmonauts Victor Afanassiev, commander, and Konstantin Kozeev, flight engineer, are the other crewmembers on this mission. She is the first non-Russian woman to undertake the role of flight engineer.

This mission, named Andromede, was initiated by the French Minister for Research and is being carried out under an agreement between the French space agency (CNES), the Russian space agency (Rosaviakosmos) and the Russian company RSC Energia.

One of the mission's main objectives is to replace the Station's Soyuz vehicle which serves as the main rescue craft for the Space Station crew in case of emergency. This is done every six months to ensure that the rescue craft is always in top condition. The visiting crew will depart from the ISS aboard the Soyuz currently attached to the station on 31 October in the early morning after an eight-day stay, and will land approximately three hours later in Kazakhstan.