Cosmonauts, French Woman Head For Mir

A Russian spaceship with two cosmonauts and the first French woman astronaut on board took off Saturday for the Mir orbiting space station.

The Soyuz TM-24 space ship was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakstan and is scheduled to dock with Mir on Monday.

On board are Claudie AndreDeshays of France and cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Alexander Kalery.

Andre-Deshays, a 39-year-old rheumatologist and an expert in neuroscience, planned to study the effects of weightlessness on the human body.

The new arrivals will join cosmonauts Yuri Onufrienko and Yuri Usachev and American astronaut Shannon Lucid already on the orbiting space station. Lucid is scheduled to land in September.