A private Crew Dragon spacecraft, carrying four astronauts from four countries, lifted off successfully from the Kennedy Space Center in the US state of Florida at 3:27 a.m. local time on Saturday.

The spacecraft was detached from the rocket after reaching the planned orbit leading to the International Space Station 12 minutes later.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket's engine was ignited after astronauts from Japan, the United States, Russia and Denmark boarded the spacecraft.

This is the second space flight for 59-year-old Furukawa Satoshi, who tied Wakata Koichi's record for being the oldest Japanese astronaut to go to space.

Wakata returned to Earth in March.

Furukawa is expected to reach the International Space Station on Sunday and stay there for half a year.

Various scientific experiments, including improving equipment that purifies urine to turn it into drinking water, are planned with future manned space exploration in mind.