Russia launched a spacecraft with three astronauts on board from the Kazakh Baikonur space center on Monday. The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft atop a Soyuz-FG carrier rocket blasted off at 2218 GMT. The Soyuz TMA-21, named after the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, was scheduled to dock with the International Space Station, ISS on Wednesday. The Russian Federal Space Agency said, the three new crew members are expected to spend 170 days in the ISS. During the period, they will receive two U.S. space shuttles and three Russian Progress cargo ships, conduct a spacewalk and carry out over 40 experiments. The launch is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the first flight into space in 1961 carried out by Gagarin.