SpaceX launches Crew 5 to International Space Station

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SpaceX launches Crew 5 to International Space Station

SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, October 5.

On Wednesday, SpaceX and NASA launched a crew of astronauts on a trip to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Crew 5 is the sixth astronaut flight launched by NASA and SpaceX, a privately held aerospace company, to the space station. The four crew members are astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, astronaut Koichi Wakata of JAXA or the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and cosmonaut Anna Kikina of Roscosmos.

Mann was the first Native American woman to ever travel to space. She is also serving as a mission commander, making her the first woman ever to take on such a role on a SpaceX mission.

Kikina is the first Russian to join a SpaceX mission as part of a ride-sharing agreement between NASA and Russia's space agency, Roscosmos. Her participation in the flight is the latest indication that the decades long US-Russia partnership in space will continue despite mounting tensions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.