Three American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut arrived on Tuesday at the International Space Station (ISS), as part of the usual crew rotation aboard the flying laboratory.
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They will stay there for approximately six months, and more than 200 scientific experiments are to be carried out during their stay.
They took off from Florida on Sunday evening aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
On Tuesday, their capsule docked with the ISS and its hatch was opened at 3:50 a.m. US East Coast Time (8:50 a.m. GMT), letting them enter the station with a big smile on their faces.
This is the eighth regular rotation mission of the ISS crew carried out by SpaceX for NASA. Hence the name of their mission: Crew-8.
The American Michael Barratt is the only Crew-8 astronaut to have already visited the ISS. However, it is the first time for the Americans Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps, as well as for the Russian cosmonaut Alexandre Grebionkin.
Seven people were already present on the ISS before their arrival.
After a handover period of a few days with the four members of Crew-7 – an American, a Dane, a Japanese and a Russian – they will return to Earth aboard another SpaceX capsule.
NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, which together operate the ISS, have set up an astronaut exchange program, each taking turns transporting a crew member from the other country.
This program was maintained despite the war in Ukraine, and the ISS is now one of the very few subjects of cooperation between Washington and Moscow.
