In a neutrally worded tweet prior to the launch, the American space agency said: 'Three people will leave planet Earth (on Wednesday) for a journey to humanity's orbiting laboratory – the @Space_Station.' Soyuz MS-08 trio lights up Kazakh sky to begin 2-day trek to ISS

Lighting up the Kazakh Steppe at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, three fresh International Space Station crew members launched toward space to begin a two-day chase of the orbiting outpost. After a nine-minute ride into orbit, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel will spend 34 orbits—about 50 hours—catching up with the orbiting outpost inside their tiny spacecraft. They will join members of Expedition 56 on the space station, which include the commander Anton Shkaplerov from Roscosmos, and flight engineers Scott Tingle of NASA and Norishige Kanai of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, who have been in space since Dec. 17. According to NASA, after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the three will embark on a 50-hour, 34-orbit flight to the International Space Station — they are expected to arrive at the space station on Friday and dock to the Poisk module at 3:41 p.m.

"The orbiting trio continues to ensure the station is flying in tip-top shape while conducting advanced space science to benefit humans on Earth and in space," a NASA blog post on Monday said. The following photos taken by NASA’s Joel Kowsky show the 162-foot (49.5-meter) long Soyuz-FG carrier rocket roll out to the launch pad two days before liftoff, the three fresh Expedition 55 crew members traveling to their Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft the day of the flight, and the launch itself.
Three people (two American, one Russian) launch successfully from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Soyuz MS-08 to the International Space Station as part of Expedition 55.