Four astronauts have successfully reached the International Space Station after launching into the final frontier early Friday morning.
“Soft capture confirmed! Crew Dragon Endeavour arrived at the @Space_Station for the second time in its history,” NASA said in a tweet Saturday.
The members of Crew Dragon Endeavour, representing three nations, made the 23 hour journey aboard a recycled SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which previously sent astronauts into space last November.
The crew is composed of NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, Thomas Pesquet from the European Space Agency and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
They formally entered the ISS at 7:43 a.m. and immediately moved to a small welcome ceremony.
“It is awesome to see the 11 of you on station. Congratulations crew to an amazing launch yesterday. Coming to Kennedy Space Center to watch a launch never gets old and seeing a pre-dawn launch yesterday was amazing,” NASA’s acting administrator, Steve Jurczyk told the crew.
It’s the third time astronauts have traveled into space on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets.