An American astronaut with ties to the Space Coast blasts off for the International Space Station.
NASA flight engineer Joe Acaba (pictured above, far left) joins Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule that launched from Kazakhstan Monday night.
The launch happened right at 11:01 p.m. EDT.
Acaba is a former teacher at Melbourne High School, where he taught science in 2000. He also briefly taught math and science at Dunnellon High School, in Marion County.
He and the two Russian cosmonauts took off for a four-month mission, arriving at the International Space Station on Wednesday to bring the orbiting outpost back to a full crew of six -- just in time for Acaba's 45th birthday Thursday.
Acaba became the first person of Puerto Rican descent in space in 2009 as a mission specialist aboard space shuttle Discovery during STS-119. He was born in California, but his parents were born in Puerto Rico.
Acaba said he understands that the Soyuz capsule has a lot less room than the now-retired space shuttles. But he said he doesn't mind the company.
"It's a huge size difference," he said. "It's going to be much tighter quarters, and if I have to spend two days in space in a small vehicle, I couldn't have picked two better people to do it. It's going to be great."
If all goes well, Acaba and the other five ISS crew members will be on board when the historic SpaceX mission docks, becoming the first private company to do so. That launch is scheduled for Saturday.