Soyuz TMA-22 successfully launched in snowstorm

Soyuz TMA-22 has successfully reached orbit after launching into a snowstorm

NASA astronaut Dan Burbank, 50, is making his third spaceflight, the first on board a Soyuz. Cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin, 42, and Anton Shkaplerov, 39, are making their first trips into space.

After a two-day trip aboard the Soyuz, the crew will arrive at the International Space Station.  There they will briefly join with station commander Mike Fossum of NASA, Japan's Satoshi Furukawa and Russia's Sergei Volkov.  Fossum, Furukawa and Volkov are scheduled to return to earth on November 21.

The launch was the first manned launch since NASA retired it's 30 year old Space Shuttle. The International Space Station now solely on Russia's Soyuz's to ferry crews to the station.