At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 35/36 Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy (right), Soyuz Commander Pavel Vinogradov (center) and Flight Engineer Alexander Misurkin clasp hands for photographers prior to the sNASA

Large gantry mechanisms on either side of the Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft are raised into position to secure the rocket at the launch pad on Tuesday, March 26, 2013 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Liftoff is set for March 28 EDT (March 2NASA/Carla Cioffi

After blasting off on a Russian rocket ride Thursday, March 28, three men are poised to make history by reaching the International Space Station faster than any astronauts to fly there before.

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Misurkin and Pavel Vinogradov launched at 4:43 p.m. EDT (2043 GMT), beginning a months-long mission in orbit for the three men. They are due to arrive at the orbiting laboratory just six hours after launch.

The trio blasted off from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The mission's Soyuz rocket rolled out to the launch pad on Tuesday, March 26, to prepare for today's liftoff.

- NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy

In the nearly 13 years since crews first began launching to the International Space Station, it has taken Russian Soyuz capsules and U.S. space shuttles about two days to reach the orbiting lab after liftoff. Now, NASA and Russia's Federal Space Agency are testing out a new, accelerated schedule. [Soyuz's 1-Day Trip to Space Station Explained (Infographic)]

The quick journey, which takes just four orbits of Earth, has been carried out by recent unmanned cargo spacecraft visiting the space station, but never by a crew.

"The four-orbit rendezvous has the advantage of a very short period of time from launch to docking," Mike Suffredini, NASA's International Space Station program manager, said of the mission. "It reduces the amount of time the crew has to spend in a small environment before they get to ISS."

Cassidy, Misurkin and Vinogradov are planning to join the station's Expedition 35 mission for a roughly six-month stay. The current residents of the outpost are commander Chris Hadfield of Canada, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn.

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New space station crew to launch and dock today in cosmic first