SpaceX successfully transports four astronauts to the International Space Station in only 15 hours post-launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – SpaceX delivered a fresh crew to the International Space Station on Saturday, making the trip in a quick 15 hours.

The astronauts from the U.S., Russia, and Japan arrived at the International Space Station in their SpaceX capsule, having launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Their mission is to spend a minimum of six months on the orbiting laboratory, relieving colleagues who have been stationed there since March. SpaceX is scheduled to retrieve those four astronauts as early as Wednesday.

NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, along with Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov, have now joined the station crew, having been assigned from different missions. Upon docking over the South Pacific, Fincke enthusiastically radioed, “Hello, space station!”

Cardman, along with another astronaut, had been removed from a SpaceX mission the previous year to accommodate NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, Boeing Starliner test pilots whose stint on the space station extended from one week to more than nine months. Fincke and Yui, initially prepared for the next Starliner flight, transitioned to SpaceX after Starliner’s delays due to thruster and other issues, now postponed until 2026.

Platonov was bumped from the Soyuz launch lineup a couple of years ago because of an undisclosed illness.

Their arrival temporarily puts the space station population at 11.

“It was such an unbelievably beautiful sight to see the space station come into our view for the first time,” Cardman said once on board.

While their journey was swift by U.S. measures, the Russians still hold the fastest trip record to the space station, completing it in just three hours.

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