SpaceX has come to the rescue of the International Space Station (ISS) after a medical emergency triggered an urgent evacuation.
Elon Musk’s Crew-12 mission replenished the ISS to full staff after it was left with a skeleton crew due to the emergency.
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 5.17am ET (10.17 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The craft then spent 30 hours free-flying through space before reaching a docking position with the ISS.
Nasa, who contracts SpaceX for transporting astronauts to and from the station, had hoped the Crew-12 launch would be expedited due to the staffing situation.
But the agency had to ditch two previous two possible launch windows on Wednesday and Thursday due to weather conditions.
Crew-12 might have been able to launch sooner, as SpaceX processed the rocket and spacecraft for the launch ahead of schedule, but Nasa also had to take time to prepare the astronauts.
Steve Stich, Nasa’s Commercial Crew Programme manager, said: “When you look at the totality of a mission, it’s getting the vehicles, the hardware and the software ready — and also the crew.
SpaceX’s Crew-12 astronauts walked out of the Kennedy Space Center before their launch
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The quartet then met with the trio on board the ISS after docking
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“And so in this case, crew training was what drove the date that we selected.”
The ISS had been operating with just three people since the medical emergency in mid-January.
The space station, which orbits 250 miles above Earth, had been running well below the target of seven after one of SpaceX’s Crew-11 experienced an undisclosed medical issue.
Nasa chief Jared Isaacman said: “I’ll say it again, that this mission has shown, in many ways, what it means to be mission focused at Nasa.
SpaceX’s Crew-12 lifts off on the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft
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“Just to recap, in the last couple of weeks, we brought Crew-11 home early. We pulled forward Crew-12 to today — all while simultaneously making preparations for the Artemis II mission.”
The Crew-12 crew comprises Nasa’s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.
Due to their emergency medical departure, Crew-11 astronauts were unable to have a direct handover of information with Crew-12.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket before the takeoff to the ISS
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However, Ms Meir said they exchanged information with the prior crew while on the ground.
“We ran into them several times and had a little bit of a debrief so they could pass along some pertinent things,” she said.
The ISS was left with three remaining staff members: Two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, and Nasa’s Chris Williams, who arrived there via Roscosmos, Nasa’s Russian counterpart.
Temporarily having three astronauts on board the football-field sized station has limited the amount of research that could be carried out, which Nasa administrator Mr Isaacman has said is a priority.
During their roughly eight-month stay on board the ISS, Crew-12 astronauts are expected to carry out a wide variety of research projects.
They include ultrasound scans of their blood vessels and a simulated lunar landing to assess how abrupt changes in gravity affect the human body.
