Tim Peake, the first Briton to travel to the International Space Station, blasted off on Tuesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome with Russian space veteran Yury Malenchenko and Tim Kopra of NASA for a six-month mission.
Fire from the boosters of the Soyuz rocket cut a bright light through the overcast sky at the Russia-operated cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, after the spacecraft launched on schedule at 1103 GMT, according to live television broadcasts.
They are due to dock at the ISS about six hours later.