NASA astronaut Kathleen "Kate" Rubins, Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early on Thursday. They reached orbit nine minutes later. The crew will dock at the space station in two days, there to start a 4-month mission.
Rubins, a researcher of cancer and infectious diseases, plans to attempt the first DNA sequencing in orbit.