Four astronauts arrived on the Iss: two Americans, one Russian and one Japanese

Saturday, SpaceX delivered a new crew to the International Space Station. The journey, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center to the ISS, was completed in just 15 hours.

The four astronauts - two Americans, one Russian and one Japanese - arrived at the ISS in their SpaceX capsule. They will spend at least six months in the orbiting laboratory, swapping places with their colleagues up there since March. SpaceX will bring the four astronauts back on board as early as next Wednesday.

The crew consists of Nasa's Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan's Kimiya Yui and Russia's Oleg Platonov. All four were originally assigned to other missions. Cardman and another astronaut were pulled off a SpaceX flight last year to make room for the two Nasa astronauts stranded in orbit, Boeing Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose stay on the space station increased from one week to more than nine months. Fincke and Yui were training for the next Starliner mission. But with the Starliner grounded by the thruster and other problems expected to last until 2026, the two switched to SpaceX. Platonov was dropped from the Soyuz launch list a couple of years ago due to an undisclosed illness.

Their arrival temporarily brings the space station's population to 11.

Although their approach flight was fast by US standards, the Russians hold the record for the fastest trip to the space station: a lightning-fast three hours.