<br/>A Russian spaceship carrying three astronauts blasted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. Russian television showed that a Soyuz-FG rocket carrying the Soyuz TMA-19 spaceship lifted off from the southern Kazakh steppe. The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) after two days of flight.<br/><br/>The 24th ISS mission, consisting of Russian cosmonaut Yury Yurchihin, NASA's Douglas Wheelock and Shannon Walker, will join another three astronauts already at the space station, thus restoring the ISS to its full capacity of six crew members. <br/><br/>They will spend 161 days in the space, during when space walks and scientific experiments will be conducted.<br/>