Astronauts arrive at ISS for 8-month mission after medical emergency forced early evacuation

Four caller astronauts arrived astatine the International Space Station connected Saturday, bringing the laboratory backmost up to afloat capableness aft respective of their colleagues were forced to permission aboriginal past period owed to a aesculapian issue.

The U.S., French and Russian astronauts and cosmonaut launched from Cape Canaveral successful a SpaceX rocket connected Friday for the astir 34-hour journey.

"That was rather the ride," NASA Commander Jessica Meir said instantly aft the launch, according to BBC News. "We person near the Earth, but the Earth has not near us." 

The motorboat had antecedently been delayed doubly owed to upwind concerns.

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The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the caller four-person unit approaches the International Space Station for docking connected Saturday, Feb. 14. (NASA via AP)

Joining Meir for the adjacent 8 to 9 months connected the Space Station are NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, France’s Sophie Adenot and Russia’s Andrei Fedyaev.

Meir, who is simply a marine biologist, and Fedyaev, a erstwhile subject pilot, person some been to the ISS previously. Meir was besides portion of the archetypal all-female spacewalk successful 2019.

The astronauts spoke aft arriving astatine the ISS connected Saturday.  (NASA)

Adenot is simply a subject chopper aviator and Hathaway is simply a skipper successful the U.S. Navy.

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The astronauts aft they arrived astatine the abstraction presumption connected Saturday.  (NASA)

Adenot is lone the 2nd French pistillate successful space.

"The spacecraft volition instrumentality astir 34 hours to autonomously dock with the abstraction station’s Harmony module at 3:15 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 14, portion traveling 17,000 mph successful Earth orbit," NASA said aft Friday’s launch.

Crew 12 ngo astronauts: aviator Jack Hathaway, Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev, commandant Jessica Meir and ESA astronaut Sophia Adenot, of France, permission the Operations and Checkout gathering earlier heading to their motorboat connected Friday. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

"What an perfectly fantastic commencement to the day," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said pursuing the launch. "This ngo has shown successful galore ways what it means to beryllium mission-focused astatine NASA." 

"In the past mates of weeks, we brought Crew-11 location early, we pulled guardant Crew-12 to the motorboat day today, each portion simultaneously making preparations for the Artemis 2 mission, which its adjacent model volition unfastened up successful aboriginal March," helium added.

"The formation is the 12th unit rotation with SpaceX to the orbiting laboratory arsenic portion of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Crew-12 volition behaviour technological investigations and exertion demonstrations to assistance hole humans for aboriginal exploration missions to the Moon and Mars, arsenic good arsenic payment radical connected Earth," according to NASA. 

NASA said the capsule's hatch opened4:14 p.m. CT aft they docked astatine the abstraction station. 

"We are truthful excited to beryllium present and get to work," Meir said aft the unit arrived connected Saturday. 

Adenot added, "The archetypal clip we looked astatine the Earth was mindblowing … We saw nary lines, nary borders." 

Before Saturday’s unit arrived, conscionable 1 American and 2 Russians remained astatine the abstraction station, keeping it running.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral for the International Space Station connected Friday.  (Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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January’s aesculapian evacuation was the archetypal successful 65 years aft NASA said a unit subordinate suffered a superior wellness issue. The abstraction bureau has not revealed the quality of the aesculapian information oregon the sanction of the astronaut, citing aesculapian privacy.

The astronaut with the aesculapian exigency and the 3 different unit members who had launched with them returned to Earth much than a period aboriginal aft the determination was made to bring them home.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.