Reaching orbit from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the newest crew includes NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, both military pilots; and Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov, both former airline pilots. They will spend the next six months at the space station, considered the normal stint, after springing Wilmore and Williams free.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 surged up through blue skies to send a crew on its way to International Space Station where the pair of NASA astronauts who flew up last summer on Boeing’s Starliner have

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams need SpaceX to get a relief team to the space station before they can check out. Arrival is set for late Saturday night.