Three astronauts yesterday blasted off for the International Space Station in a spaceship named after the first man in space Yuri Gagarin in honour of his historic flight 50 years ago.

The two Russians and one American left on a Soyuz rocket from the main launchpad at Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the same location where Gagarin went on his historic space mission on April 12, 1961.

The flight in the early hours of the morning left a bright beam of light against the background of the clear starry sky over the vast Kazakh steppe, an AFP correspondent reported.

Their mission has been dedicated to Gagarin’s flight – which gave the Soviet Union its greatest Cold War victory over the US – and their Soyuz capsule is named after and even inscribed with the name of the cosmonaut.

“The flight is normal,” mission control told the crew, who waved and gave the thumbs-up sign to a camera relaying images from the capsule back to earth.

Cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrei Borisenko are making their first space flight while US astronaut Ronald Garan is making his second mission, having already flown on US shuttle Discovery in 2008.

“We are feeling good,” said the voice of one of the crew, apparently flight commander Samokutyaev. “I wish you success and a good flight,” said the head of Russia’s space agency, Anatoly Perminov.

The Soyuz capsule successfully went into earth orbit and is due to dock with the ISS at 23:18 GMT today, after a two-day journey.

The mission is a centrepiece of celebrations for the half century of manned spaceflight and there had been worries it could miss the anniversary after a technical problem forced a delay from the original March 30 lift-off date.

Russian state television said the crew were taking a recording of the famous radio exchanges between Gagarin in his tiny capsule and chief Soviet rocket designer Sergei Korolyov on the ground from half a century ago.

Also going to space was an icon presented by the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. In a sign of the importance of the mission, air security is being ensured by eight planes and 12 helicopters around eastern Russian and Kazakhstan, federal aviation agency Rosaviatsia said in a statement.