Launch of Manned Expedition 39

Three new crew members, Russian Cosmonauts Aleksandr Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev as well as NASA astronaut Steven R. Swanson blasted off into Space tonight, March 25th 2014 at 21:17 UTC in their Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft onboard a Soyuz-FG rocket. They will dock with the International Space Station later tonight just 6 hours after launch to join their fellow crew members already onboard - their expedition will last 6 months.