Watch as three new crew members take off from Kazakhstan on the 50-metre Soyuz TMA-19M rocket for the International Space Station shortly after 6 a.m. ET.
NASA's Tim Kopra, an American, Russia's Yuri Malenchenko and the European Space Agency's Tim Peake of Great Britain are the crew set to embark on an estimated journey of about six hours from Baikonur.
Malenchenko, a former commander at Russia's Mir space station, is making his sixth trip into space, tying a national record. Kopra is making his first trip on the Soyuz and second trip into space.
Peake will become the first Briton at the ISS. The former British Army officer was selected out of 8,000 applicants for the spot.
The crew will conduct microgravity experiments, with lung health and inflammation of the astronauts to be charted.
Crew member Timothy Peake of Britain gestures after donning a space suit at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday before travelling on board the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft. (Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)
Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and crewmates Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov of Russia are currently on the station.
Kelly and Kornienko are on the first joint U.S.-Russian one-year mission at the space station.
The previous three-man crew, comprised of American, Russian and Japanese members, landed safely in Kazakhstan on Dec. 11.
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