The crew included a veteran NASA astronaut Ron Garan, and two new cosmonauts named Andrey Borisenko, and Alexander Samokutyaev.

The space flyers lifted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:18 p.m. EDT (2218 GMT), on the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft commonly known as Gagarin.

The space carrier has been named after the Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.

The three space men are scheduled to stay on the International Space Station for six months. They will be joining the other three members, who are already living in the orbiting laboratory.

About Ron Garan

The commander of the crew is Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, who is on his maiden space voyage. Joining him are NASA’s Catherine Coleman, veteran of two space flight missions and European Space Agency’s Paolo Nespoli, who also had travelled to space earlier.

The crew from three nations
Though the astronauts are from three different countries, they know each other well and have served together as back up astronauts on some earlier missions too.