A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Friday with a space capsule filled with mice, gerbils, geckos and other animals on a month-long flight to assess how the animals respond to the trials of space travel.
The Soyuz 2-1a rocket lifted off at 1000 GMT (6 a.m. EDT), or 4 p.m. local time at the Central Asia launch site. The rocket delivered the Bion M1 capsule to orbit about nine minutes later.
