SpaceX successfully transported a new international crew to the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, completing the journey in just 15 hours after liftoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

The newly arrived team — comprising NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui, and Russia’s Oleg Platonov — will spend at least six months aboard the ISS, replacing the current crew who have been stationed there since March. SpaceX is expected to bring those four astronauts back to Earth as early as Wednesday.

“Hello, space station!” Fincke radioed cheerfully as their SpaceX capsule docked with the ISS high above the South Pacific.

The crew members are all seasoned professionals who were reassigned from other missions. Cardman had previously been pulled from a SpaceX mission last year to make room for Boeing Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose intended one-week stay at the ISS turned into an unexpected nine-month mission due to technical issues.

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Fincke and Yui had been preparing for the next Starliner mission, but with the spacecraft grounded until at least 2026 due to ongoing thruster problems, both astronauts shifted to the SpaceX crew. Meanwhile, Platonov had been removed from a previous Soyuz mission a few years ago due to an undisclosed illness.

Their arrival brings the ISS crew count temporarily to 11.

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

While the SpaceX trip was rapid by U.S. standards, Russia still holds the record for the fastest ISS journey — an incredible three-hour flight.

Source: Agency