A new crew was delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) by SpaceX on Saturday, who made the trip in only 15 hours.
Four US, Russian and Japanese astronauts pulled up in the SpaceX ship after launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre. They will spend at least six months in station orbiting Earth. Their flight had been delayed by one day due to bad weather.
The four moving into the ISS are NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. “Hello, space station!” Fincke radioed as soon as the capsule docked.
Cardman and another astronaut were pulled from a SpaceX flight last year to make room for NASA's two stuck astronauts, Boeing Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Their space station stay went from one week to more than nine months due to a faulty Boeing spacecraft.
Fincke and Yui had been training for the next Starliner mission. However, with Starliner grounded by thruster and other problems until 2026, the two switched to SpaceX.
Platonov was bumped from the Soyuz launch line-up several ago because of an undisclosed illness.
The arrival of the astronauts on Saturday temporarily puts the ISS population at 11. The astronauts greeting them had cold drinks and hot food waiting for them
The arriving astronauts will replace four colleagues who have already been in the ISS since March. Those four will be brought back as early as Wednesday.
While Saturday’s arrival was speed by US standards, Russia holds the record for the fastest trip to the ISS at three hours.
