The four U.S., Russian and Japanese astronauts pulled up in their SpaceX capsule after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They will spend at least six months at the orbiting lab, swapping places with colleagues up there since March. SpaceX will bring those four back as early as Wednesday.

Crew-11 will send NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, along with Kimiya Yui of JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov to the ISS for a roughly six-month stay. Cardman is the mission's commander, Fincke is the pilot and Yui and Platonov are mission specialists.

An international crew of four astronauts launched toward the International Space Station from Florida on Friday aboard a SpaceX rocket, beating gloomy weather to embark on a routine NASA mission that could be the first of many to last a couple months longer than usual.