A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for a six-hour trip to the International Space Station.
The spacecraft left from the cosmodrome, which Russia leases in Kazakhstan, according to the Associated Press.
The team will be joining Russian commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and his two flight engineers- Karen Nyberg of NASA and Italian Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency.
Inside the capsule is NASA's Michael Hopkins and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky. The team will orbit Earth four times before docking at the orbiting outpost instead of the normal 30.
The team will spend six months conducting a number of different experiments, according to the Associated Press.
Kotov has been to the ISS twice before.
Live coverage by NASA TV showed the launch as it blasted off shortly before 1 a.m. Moscow time on Thursday (5 p.m. EDT Wednesday).
An Olympic torch was brought up with the team which Kotov and Ryazansky plan on carrying during a spacewalk as part of celebrations leading up to the Winter Olympics. Nyberg's crew will bring the torch back to Earth, according to Florida Today.
The Olympics will be held in Sochi, Russia in 2014.
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