* Olympic torch to go into space unlit

* Torch to be taken on spacewalk for first time

* Orbiting crew will increase to nine (Updates with torch brought aboard space station)

By Alissa de Carbonnel

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan, Nov 7 (Reuters) - A three-man crew took the Olympic torch to the International Space Station on a Russian rocket on Thursday, ready to send it on its first space walk in a showcase for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

An onboard camera showed Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata pumping the air with his fist as the Soyuz rocket, painted with snowflake patterns, lifted off from the Russian-rented Baikonur launch facility on a crisp, clear morning on the Kazakh steppe.

After a six-hour trip to the station, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin crawled through a hatch and handed the unlit torch to his beaming countryman on board, Fyodor Yurchikhin.

"It was great ride and we're happy to be here," said U.S. astronaut Rick Mastracchio, who travelled with Tyurin and Wakata, in a videolink with relatives and space officials 250 miles (400 km) below back on Earth.

Inspired by the Firebird of Russian folklore, the meter-long, red-and-silver torch weighs almost 2 kilograms (4.4 lbs) on Earth, but it floated lazily in zero gravity as Tyurin slowly twirled it in the weightlessness of the orbital outpost.

"It's just an outstanding day and a spectacular launch," William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, told Reuters at Baikonur.

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Russian Soyuz rocket flies Olympic torch to space station