A workhorse Soyuz booster thundered to life and climbed into a dark Kazakh sky Friday, carrying NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko on a four-orbit voyage to the International Space Station to kick off a marathon 342-day mission, the longest flight ever attempted by an American.

With spacecraft commander Gennady Padalka strapped into the command module's center seat, flanked on the left by flight engineer Kornienko and on the right by Kelly, the Soyuz TMA-16M rocket's main engines ignited with a roar at 3:42:57 p.m. EDT (GMT-4; 1:43 a.m. Saturday local time), pushing the booster away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft launches to the International Space Station with NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian Cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka on board Saturday, March 28, 2015, Kazakh time (March 27 Eastern time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Bill Ingalls/NASA, Getty Images

The International Space Station passed 260 miles above the launch site just a few moments earlier and after a smooth eight-minute 45-second climb to orbit, the Soyuz spacecraft was released from its upper stage booster, solar wings and navigation antennas deployed and the crew set off after its quarry.

"Good luck, Captain. Make sure to @Instagram it. We're proud of you," President Obama tweeted from his White House account. Added First Lady Michelle Obama: "We have liftoff! @StationCDRKelly just launched for the @Space_Station on his #YearInSpace. Good luck, Captain."

The autonomous rendezvous went smoothly and Padalka, one of Russia's most experienced cosmonauts, monitored a picture-perfect docking at the upper Poisk module at 9:33 p.m.

Two hours later, after extensive leak checks, hatches were opened and Expedition 43 commander Terry Virts, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti welcomed their new crewmates aboard with hugs and handshakes.

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Astronauts begin one-year space station mission