SpaceX capsule with 4 astronauts welcomed aboard Space Station

Four astronauts arrived at the International Space Station on Thursday and docked their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule with the orbiting laboratory to begin a six-month science mission. Among them three were from NASA and one from the European Space Agency, This mission known as Crew-3 is part of Nasa's multibillion-dollar partnership with Elon Musk's space company, signed after the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011 and aimed at restoring US capacity to carry out human spaceflight, rather than depend on Russia for links to the ISS.

The rendezvous came about 21 hours after the team and its capsule were launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Endurance crew consists of three American NASA astronauts - flight commander Raja Chari, 44, mission pilot Tom Marshburn, 61, and mission specialist Kayla Barron, 34 - as well as German astronaut Matthias Maurer, 51, a mission specialist from the European Space Agency. The docking took place about 6:30 p.m. EST (2330 GMT) while the Crew Dragon vehicle, dubbed Endurance, and the space station were flying about 260 miles (420 km) above the eastern Caribbean Sea, according to NASA.