Three new crew members have arrived at the International Space Station, including Britain's first official astronaut.

NASA's Tim Kopra, an American, Russia's Yuri Malenchenko and the European Space Agency's Tim Peake of Great Britain blasted off aboard a 50-metre Soyuz TMA-19M rocket shortly after 6 a.m. ET today from Kazakhstan and are en route to the International Space Station.

They embarked on a journey of more than six hours from Baikonur. The capsule docked at 12:23 p.m. ET.

There were no reported problems with the launch, and the capsule entered orbit about nine minutes after liftoff, at an altitude of about 212 kilometres.

Crew member Timothy Peake of Britain gestures and two fellow astronauts were at the Baikonur Cosmodrome before travelling on board the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft. (Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

Malenchenko, a former commander at Russia's Mir space station, is making his sixth trip into space, tying a national record. Kopra is making his first trip on the Soyuz and second trip into space.

Peake will become the first Briton at the ISS. The former British army officer was selected out of 8,000 applicants.

Photographers take pictures as Russia's Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft carrying the International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 46/47 crew of Britain's astronaut Tim Peake, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra blasts off from the launch pad at Kazakhastan's Baikonur cosmodrome on Tuesday (Kirill Kudrayavtsev/AFP/Getty Images)

During their six-month mission, the crew will conduct microgravity experiments, with lung health and inflammation of the astronauts to be charted.

Expedition 46 Cmdr. Scott Kelly of NASA and crewmates Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov of Russia are currently on the station.

Kelly and Kornienko are on the first joint U.S.-Russian one-year mission. They have been on the ISS since March.

A previous three-man crew, comprised of American, Russian and Japanese members, landed safely in Kazakhstan on Dec. 11.