Four astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, completing a record-setting journey from Earth. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Crew-13 mission at 11:10 a.m. local time from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and after a flight lasting seven hours and 55 minutes, the SpaceX Dragon Grace capsule successfully docked with the orbiting laboratory.

The arrival marked the fastest trip by a U.S. spacecraft to the ISS, according to NASA officials. During a live broadcast on NASA TV, viewers observed the capsule approach the station, both traveling at approximately 28,163 kilometers per hour. The four crew members—Americans Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Joshua Kutryk, and Russian Sergey Teteryatnikov—entered the station through a pressurized vestibule and exchanged greetings with mission control and colleagues on Earth.

“We are so excited to be here. This is truly a special place,” Watkins said during the broadcast. She reflected on the contrast between the brief trip to the ISS and the extensive preparation that preceded it. Kutryk expressed pride in representing Canada in space and said he looked forward to starting the mission after getting some rest.

The timing of the journey varies depending on the ISS’s position relative to the spacecraft at launch. By comparison, the previous crew mission launched from the U.S. took more than 30 hours to reach the station. Initially, the Crew-13 mission was scheduled to dock in mid-September but experienced a delay due to a leak aboard the Dragon capsule.

Crew-13 will replace the current ISS crew, which includes Americans Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. The outgoing team, known as Crew-12, is expected to return to Earth as soon as Monday, though their exact departure time depends on favorable weather conditions.