Blastoff From Baikonur

A Russian Soyuz rocket streaked into the skies over the Central Asian steppe on Thursday, launching a U.S.-Russian-Brazilian crew on a mission to the International Space Station.

Officials monitoring the launch at Russian Mission Control outside Moscow held their applause until the spacecraft reached near-Earth orbit, about 10 minutes after its 6:30 a.m. launch.

Russian Pavel Vinogradov and American Jeffrey Williams are to stay aboard the space station for about six months. Brazil's first man in space, Marcos Pontes, will stay at the station for nine days before returning to Earth on April 9 with the station's current crew of Russian Valery Tokarev and American Bill McArthur.

Vinogradov and Williams will later be joined by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, of Germany, when the space shuttle Discovery visits the space station in July. Once Reiter arrives, the station's long-duration crew will be three in number for the first time since May 2003, following the Columbia disaster that February.

"Since the Columbia went down back in 2003 the space station has only been able to support two person crews," says CBS News Space Consultant Bill Harwood. "The Russian Soyuz and their unmanned progress supply ships can't carry enough water and supplies to support a three person crew which is what NASA and the International Partners want. It really takes the shuttle to carry the supplies the station needs and also to complete the assembly [of the station]."

A video camera aboard the craft showed Pontes wearing a wide smile, giving a thumbs-up and pointing to the Brazilian flag on the left arm of his spacesuit.

At Baikonur, a crowd of about 150 relatives of the crew, space officials and journalists craned their necks to follow the trajectory of the rocket after its ground-shaking liftoff into the bright morning sky.

"It was very emotional. I can't even explain how I feel - very, very happy," Pontes' wife Fatima said.

"I was crying during the launch because his dream came true," chimed in the couple's 15-year-old daughter, Ana.

NASA official Kirk Shireman said the 13th mission to the space station is "getting off to a good start."

"They'll expand to a three-man crew when the (U.S.) shuttle returns in July," he said. "It's a new beginning for the space station."

Russian Mission Control chief Vladimir Solovyov said that the only glitch following the launch was a minor technical communications problem that interfered with the transmission of telemetry data.

"Everything went according to plan and normally," he said.

Pontes said Wednesday that he was taking both a flag and a soccer jersey into orbit in hopes it would bring his Latin American nation's team victory in the World Cup.

"I am taking the Brazilian flag - the most important thing that I am taking," he told reporters. "Actually, I am going with the flag, not the flag going with me."

The Soyuz TMA 8 spacecraft is due to dock at the station early Saturday. Vinogradov, who is the commander of the crew, said they would carry out over 65 scientific experiments during the mission, including some to test human reaction to prolonged space travel.

The American space program has depended on the Russians for cargo and astronaut delivery to the space station since the Columbia explosion. The shuttle Discovery visited the station in July but had problems with the foam insulation on its external fuel tank.

Williams praised the cooperation between the Russians and the Americans, saying the two countries were united by the common vision of space exploration and by the goal of keeping a permanent presence in orbit following the Columbia accident.

"I think the partnership is stronger because of it," he said.

Vinogradov said that, in space cooperation, the Russians and Americans "have learned to work together."

Pontes began training in 1998 in the United States and had been scheduled to fly to the space station aboard a U.S. space shuttle. But those plans were scrapped after the Columbia explosion and Brazil opened talks with Russia about having Pontes travel on a Russian rocket.

During a November 2004 visit to Brazil, Russian President Vladimir Putin also agreed that Russia would help Brazil resume its space program and restore its launch base, which was destroyed by a 2003 rocket explosion that killed 21 people.