The Soyuz TMA-14M crew (left to right): Shuttle veteran Barry "Butch" Wilmore, Soyuz commander and space station veteran Alexander Samokutyaev and rookie flight engineer Elena Serova, the first female cosmonaut assigned to a long-duration stay aboard the station. NASA

An experienced Russian cosmonaut, a NASA shuttle veteran and the first female cosmonaut to be assigned to the International Space Station geared up for launch Thursday aboard a Soyuz ferry craft for a four-orbit flight to the orbiting lab complex.

With commander Alexander Samokutyaev at the controls, flanked on the left by board engineer Elena Serova and on the right by Barry "Butch" Wilmore, the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft was scheduled for blastoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:25 p.m. EDT (GMT-4; 2:25 a.m. local time). The timing allows the Soyuz to launch directly into the plane of the station's orbit for a fast-track six-hour rendezvous.

If all goes well, Samokutyaev and Serova will oversee an automated sequence of rocket firings to catch up with the space station, moving in for docking at the upper Poisk module around 10:15 p.m. Standing by to welcome them aboard will be Expedition 41 commander Maxim Suraev, European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst and NASA flight engineer Reid Wiseman.

Suraev, Gerst and Wiseman have had the station to themselves since Sept. 10, when outgoing commander Steven Swanson, Soyuz commander Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev returned to Earth aboard the TMA-12M ferry craft.

Samokutyaev is a veteran of a previous station flight, logging 164 days in space in 2011. Wilmore has a shuttle flight to his credit, serving as pilot of the Atlantis for an 11-day station visit in 2009. Serova, the fourth female cosmonaut and the first to visit the space station, is making her first flight.

"There were a number of women on the ISS before me, but I will be the first Russian woman cosmonaut," she said in a NASA interview. "I never thought about it too much because space is what I do for work, and that's what I think about it: It's my work. But obviously for Russian women it might be a breakthrough in this area."

Married to an aerospace engineer and the mother of an 11-year-old child, Serova is firmly focused on the job at hand, dismissing questions about the greater significance of her mission.

"There have been quite a few female astronauts before me, and I don't see my flying as such an outstanding event," said said in a later interview. "Each of us is first and foremost governed by his or her primary tasks aboard the station. So, I would say this is a regular and nominal occurrence. Nothing special."

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Soyuz set for launch to carry three to space station