It said the craft left its hangar at 7:00 am local time (0100 GMT) and was moved by rail to the launch site.

The rocket is scheduled to lift off at 0354 GMT Saturday, taking American Edward Lu, 39, and Russian Yury Malenchenko, 41, to the ISS two days later.

The astronauts and their replacement crew of Russian Alexander Kalery and American Michael Foale, on Wednesday trained under conditions of weightlessness to rehearse biomedical experiments they will conduct during their six-month mission at the ISS, according to Russian biomedical specialists.

The crew is to join Americans Kenneth Bowersox and Donald Pettit, and Russian Nikolai Budarin on the ISS, whose four-month mission started in December, but was extended after uncertainties following the Columbia disaster.

Bowersox, Pettit and Budarin are to re-enter the atmosphere on May 4 in a Soyuz craft currently docked at the ISS.

Since the Columbia space shuttle disintegrated on Febrary 1, killing all seven crew members, the US has suspended all NASA space shuttle missions to the ISS.

Russia's spacecraft are now the only means of transporting crew and support to the space station.

Lu, a Chinese-American who has carried out two previous space flights, spent two months training at the Star City astronaut centre outside Moscow before arriving at the Soviet-era space launch pad in the barren Kazakh steppe on Sunday.

SPACE.WIRE