Three astronauts, from Japan, Russia and the United States, blasted off Dec. 21 amid harsh weather for a Christmas voyage to the International Space Station.

The Soyuz rocket blasted off on schedule from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in the barren Kazakh steppe at 3:52 a.m. carrying Soichi Noguchi of Japan, U.S. astronaut Timothy Creamer and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov.

Noguchi, 44, will stay on the ISS through May in his second space trip following one in 2005 as a crew member of the U.S. shuttle Discovery.

He is poised to top the existing long-stay record of 137 days for a Japanese astronaut set by Koichi Wakata, 46, earlier this year.

Noguchi will be joined by Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, 38, who will arrive at the ISS in March on a shuttle.