A Russian rocket has blasted off from a space centre in southern Kazakhstan, transporting two Russian cosmonauts and a Nasa astronaut to the International Space Station.

The Soyuz craft carrying California native Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko rose from the Baikonur cosmodrome on schedule.

The craft, which thundered into orbit at more than eight-thousand miles per hour about ten minutes into the flight, is scheduled to dock with the space station on Sunday.

Live pictures broadcast from the craft during take-off showed expedition head Skvortsov smiling as a toy duck nicknamed "Quack" dangled overhead.

Caldwell Dyson, Skvortsov and Kornienko will join the Russian commander Oleg Kotov, Nasa astronaut Timothy J. Creamer and Soichi Noguchi of Japan on board the station, which is orbiting about 200 miles above the Earth.