A three-man space crew blasted off to the International Space Station on a six-month mission today.

Astronauts Tim Kopra of NASA, Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency) and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency took off from Baikonur aboard a Soyuz spacecraft and will spend six months on the orbital complex.

Tim Peake will be the first British astronaut to work aboard the International Space Station.

Aboard the ISS Kopra, Peake and Malenchenko will be met by Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and Russian Flight Engineers Sergey Volkov and Mikhail Kornienko.

Kelly, Kornienko and Volkov will return in March 2016 after spending a year on the ISS collecting biomedical data on the effects of long space travel which could be used during preparations for NASA's journey to Mars. 

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