Video: Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft takes off for ISS

With a truly international team on board, the Soyuz spacecraft has taken off this morning, from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazahkstan.

The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft carrying the next crew for the International Space Station has successfully blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome. NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and Japan's Akihito Hoshide will travel for two days before reaching their three colleagues already in place at the International Space Station. Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide are scheduled to dock their Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft to the Rassvet module of the station at 12:52 a.m. EDT Tuesday, July 17. The NASA website says that, "They will be joining Expedition 32 Commander Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Flight Engineers Joe Acaba of NASA and Sergei Revin of Russia, who have been aboard the orbiting laboratory since May 17. The six crew members will work together for about two months. Acaba, Padalka and Revin are scheduled to return to Earth Sept. 17. Before they depart, Padalka will hand over command of the station and Expedition 33 to Williams. She, Malenchenko and Hoshide will return home in mid-November." Seems like the International Space Station is the place to be, as Japan's HTV3 cargo ship will dock there next week and will be the first of nine craft making contact with the orbiting satellite over a 17-day span.