Olympic torch blasts into space

To showcase the Winter Olympic Games in Russia, a Soyuz rocket carrying the torch has docked with the International Space Station.

17:27 07 November 2013

The rocket, which carried the torch for the Sachi Winter Olympics, has left Earth at 04:14:25 GMT. On Saturday, two Russian cosmonauts will take it on a historic first spacewalk. The torch will not be lit, however.

The rocket blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Olympic symbol will be handed to cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky by fellow cosmonauts Mikhail Tyurin, Rick Mastracchio, and Koichi Wakata.

Earlier, Mr Kotov said: "Our goal here is to make it look spectacular.”

"We'd like to showcase our Olympic torch in space. We will try to do it in a beautiful manner. Millions of people will see it live on TV and they will see the station and see how we work."

The Sochi torch will return to Earth and will be used to light the Olympic cauldron in February 2014.