SpaceX launched a Dragon spacecraft into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast early Saturday, carrying a multinational crew from the United States, Denmark, Japan, and Russia on a flight to the International Space Station.

The four crew members strapped into their seats inside SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft overnight and then waited for a Falcon 9 rocket to shoot them into orbit from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. With a flash of orange light, the rocket's nine kerosene-fueled Merlin engines ignited and propelled the Falcon 9 off the launch pad at 3:27 am EDT (07:27 UTC).

The rocket headed northeast from the Florida coast to arc over the Atlantic Ocean and line up with the flight path of the International Space Station. About two-and-a-half minutes into the launch, the Falcon 9's first stage booster separated from the rocket's upper stage to begin thrusting back toward Cape Canaveral. The return maneuver culminated in an on-target vertical landing a few miles south of the launch pad.

Into orbit

This was the first flight of a brand-new Falcon 9 booster, joining more than 15 reusable boosters in SpaceX's rotation, an inventory that has helped enable an average of one launch every four days this year.

After ditching the first stage, the Falcon 9's upper stage accelerated the Dragon crew capsule to orbital velocity, then released the spacecraft to begin a pursuit of the space station. If all goes according to plan, the Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft—making its third flight to orbit—will link up with the space station Sunday to deliver a fresh four-person crew to the outpost for a six-month stay.

NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli commands the crew. She is joined by Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen representing the European Space Agency, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov.

At the space station, the crew will work on hundreds of scientific experiments, perform maintenance tasks, and venture outside on spacewalks. Saturday morning's flight was the 11th SpaceX launch to carry people into space, and SpaceX's seventh operational crew rotation for NASA to the space station, a number that gives the mission its name: Crew-7.

The Crew-7 team will replace the Crew-6 mission, which has been living and working on the space station since March. Upon arrival of the new crew, the Crew-6 team will pack up their Dragon capsule for return to Earth in early September.