Moscow - With a national football shirt and flag stowed in his kit, Brazil's first astronaut Marcos Pontes is due to blast off from Kazakhstan at 0230 GMT Thursday aboard a Russian rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS).
The Soyuz capsule carrying Pontes and the 13th permanent ISS crew should dock two days later at the station, where the Brazilian will perform scientific experiments before returning to Earth on April 9 with the outgoing crew.
"I feel a great responsibility because I will serve as an example to the younger generation, just as (Yury) Gagarin did in his day," Pontes, 43, told journalists at the Baikonur space centre, referring to the Soviet cosmonaut who became the first man in space almost 45 years ago.
Gagarin made his historic 108-minute flight round the Earth in the Vostok capsule on April 12, 1961. The new ISS crew will take off from the same launch pad as the space pioneer.
"It makes me proud when my smile is compared to his," added the air force pilot, whose boyish grin drew comparisons during his training for the ISS visit.
Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and US astronaut Jeffrey Williams will arrive on a six-month mission during which they will also perform an intensive science programme as well as construction and maintenance work on outside the ISS on space walks.
On one sortie Vinogradov is slated to use a gold-plated club to drive a golf ball into a four-year Earth orbit in a tribute to the golf strokes made on the moon in 1971 by Nasa astronaut Alan Shepard.
His crew replaces Russian Valery Tokarev and Nasa's William MacArthur, who have been working on the station since last October.
As millions of people followed the solar eclipse Thursday, Williams said the crew were unconcerned by superstitions attached to the phenomenon.
"We regard the eclipse itself and also the mission number 13 as good omens that will help us carry out our work," he was quoted as saying.
Space buffs will however recall the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission in 1970, when a US crew narrowly survived an explosion on board their space craft during a lunar mission. - Sapa-dpa