The Dragon Endurance spacecraft docked with the microgravity lab about 29 hours after it was launched.

In order to replace the outgoing crew, four astronauts who launched on a SpaceX Dragon rocket on Monday docked with the International Space Station.

Nasa astronaut Nicole Mann became the first Native American in space as she arrived in the flying laboratory with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Koichi Wakata, Nasa’s Josh Cassada, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina.

About 29 hours after being launched from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon-9 rocket, the Dragon Endurance spacecraft docked with the microgravity lab in a coordinated dance with the Space Station, 400 kilometres above the surface of the Earth.

The Crew-5 now joins Expedition 68 crew of Nasa astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, Frank Rubio, and Jessica Watkins, Samantha Cristoforetti of European Space Agency (ESA), and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin in the station.

‘For a short time, the number of crew on the space station will increase to 11 people until Crew-4 departs,’ Nasa said. The Crew-4 will undock from the Space Station in the coming days after handing over a series of experiments and helping the new crew settle in the station.

A Russian cosmonaut launched from the US on the SpaceX trip for the first time in 20 years, making the Crew-5 mission historic in addition to sending the first native American into space.

Anna Kikina Kikina is the Russian Space Agency’s exchange for Nasa’s Frank Rubio, who launched to the space station two weeks ago from Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz rocket. He flew up with two cosmonauts.