In the heat of a Kazakhstan night, we stood 900m (2,952ft) from the launchpad where a Soyuz rocket readied for take-off. 

I couldn’t help thinking what the men inside the capsule at the top were going through – I know my heart was beating a little faster.

What if something went wrong in front of the families, in front of the world’s press?

And then came the roar, a huge glow before us as the spacecraft ascended. And then another roar, from the families next to us.

It was a sound not just of pride, but of sheer relief that the launch was going well.

They will have heard – as I did through my earpiece a few minutes in – that the leader of the three-man team, Russian Cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, reported the crew members were all feeling good.

They were at the start of a 200-mile journey to the International Space Station.

Being there was quite extraordinary. We’d spent three days back and forth to the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan awaiting the launch of the rocket on what was the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

That was a happy coincidence which made the launch into space by the cosmonaut and two astronauts from the US and Italy all the more special.

The night before they had told us they were going to wear special badges on their suits to commemorate the Apollo landing.

Our conversations had taken place through a glass partition as the men were in quarantine until a few hours before take-off.

Seeing the rocket for the first time when it was brought from its hangar had been pretty impressive, but the launch was something else. An assault on the senses. Television does not do justice to what we saw, and heard.

We witnessed something up close few people will ever get to.

It had been a tough few days – 3am starts, after midnight finishes, waiting outside in plus-40 degree heat for the choreography of pre-launch events to take place.

But on the night it all seemed worth it. I left wondering where those men I’d spoken to were now.

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