The Soyuz-FG launch vehicle lifted off from the Baikonur Space Center in central Kazakhstan at 00:03 Moscow Standard Time on Thursday (21:03 GMT on Wednesday). Nine minutes after the launch, the spacecraft separated from the carrier rocket and began an autonomous flight that lasted six hours. Initially, the crew of Expedition 44/45 was to start off on the space mission on May 26 but Roscosmos had to revise the date in the wake of a defaulted launch of the Progress M-27M cargo craft, which overshot the designated orbit and was lost eventually. Soyuz rocket launch with new space station crew - in photo gallery by TASS.