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The SpaceX capsule docking with the ISS
Photo: NASA TV / AFP
A crew of four astronauts has arrived safely at the International Space Station.
The "Crew Dragon" with two Americans, a Russian and an Emirati on board docked on Friday at 7.40 a.m. Central European Time at the ISS, as shown by live images from the US space agency Nasa.
The space capsule of Elon Musk's private space company SpaceX was launched on Thursday, almost 25 hours earlier, from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome in the US state of Florida.
The team was tasked with conducting more than 200 experiments aboard the space station.
Some of the research will help enable future long-term manned expeditions to the moon.
The "Crew-6" consists of Stephen Bowen, Warren Hoburg, Andrei Fedjajew and Sultan al-Nijadi.
It will remain in space for around six months.
This is the repeated time that astronauts from the USA and Russia have flown together into space since Russia attacked Ukraine and the associated tensions between the USA and Russia increased.
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On board the ISS, the four cosmonauts are welcomed by seven current ISS occupants.
Four of them will fly back to Earth in a few days.
The return of the other three has been delayed because a leak was discovered in the Soyuz capsule that brought them to the ISS in September.
That's why a replacement spacecraft arrived at the ISS at the weekend, with which the three should probably fly back in September instead of March as planned.
lki/dpa/Reuters