The United States space shuttle Discovery blasted off successfully from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday morning. NASA officials described the launch as nearly "picture perfect". It is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday.

On board the shuttle are seven astronauts, three of whom are women. For this reason the mission marks a first in space: together with the woman already on the ISS - NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson - it represents the first occasion on which four women have been in orbit at the same time.

The shuttle is transporting food and research equipment to the space station, on what is also one of its last journeys. In September, after nearly 30 years in operation, the space shuttle programme will come to an end.

The launch follows the successful Sunday docking of a Russian Soyuz rocket with the ISS. The rocket, carrying two Russian and one US astronaut, took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday. The astronauts, who will spend six months on board, are joining colleagues from the United States, Japan and Russia.