​SpaceX launched on Monday morning (Romanian time) a Falcon 9 rocket carrying four astronauts who will spend six months conducting experiments on the International Space Station as part of the Crew-8 mission. The crew also includes a Russian.

The launch took place at 5:55 a.m. Monday morning (Sunday, 10:53 p.m. at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Docking with the Harmony SSI module is scheduled for 3:00 a.m. March 5 (Fla. time). ) .

With the Crew-8 mission, SpaceX is making its 13th crewed flight (including eight for NASA), and the company has sent a total of 50 people into orbit.

Over 200 scientific experiments are planned to be conducted during the six months that the Crew-8 crew will spend aboard the orbital station, which has been a permanent resident for 23 years.

This space flight, organized as part of the scheduled rotation of the crew on the ISS, was originally scheduled for February 22, but was postponed for the first time. After that, it was postponed several times due to bad weather (the last time the wind was very strong).

The Dragon capsule with crew, placed on top of the rocket, has already been used in four previous manned missions.

The four passengers are members of Crew-8, the eighth routine orbital mission provided by SpaceX for NASA starting in 2020.

American Michael Barratt is the only astronaut from the Crew-8 mission who has already visited the ISS. This is his third stay aboard the orbital station. Instead, this mission marks the first space travel for two other Americans, Matthew Dominique and Jeanette Epps, as well as for Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin.