SpaceX Delivers Multinational Crew to ISS in Record-Breaking Time – A new crew of four astronauts from the United States, Japan, and Russia successfully arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, following a remarkably swift 15-hour trip aboard a SpaceX capsule.
Launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the team includes NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui, and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. They will begin their six-month mission aboard the ISS, replacing the team that has been in orbit since March. Those outgoing astronauts are expected to return to Earth as early as Wednesday.
As the capsule approached the station high above the South Pacific, Fincke greeted mission control with enthusiasm: “Hello, space station!”
This journey marks a unique twist in each astronaut’s career path. Cardman was originally scheduled for a different SpaceX mission but was reassigned due to complications with Boeing’s Starliner program. Fincke and Yui had also been preparing for future Starliner flights, but delays in the program now pushed to 2026 due to technical issues led them to shift to this SpaceX mission.
Platonov’s story is equally notable: he was previously removed from a Soyuz flight lineup due to an undisclosed health issue but now returns to space aboard this international crew.
With their arrival, the ISS is temporarily home to 11 astronauts, making it a crowded but energized environment.
“It was such an unbelievably beautiful sight to see the space station come into our view for the first time,” Cardman shared upon docking.
Although the 15-hour journey is considered fast by American standards, the current record for the quickest trip to the ISS is held by a Russian crew just three hours from Earth to orbit.