Welcome aboard! NASA's Crew-6 astronauts join ISS residents after day-long journey

All four astronauts launched by SpaceX for NASA's Crew-6 mission have safely entered the International Space Station (ISS) after a day-long journey. The Crew-6 consisted of two NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren "Woody" Hoburg, one Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and a UAE national Sultan Al-Neyadi. While Bowen is a veteran of the Space Shuttle era and flew for the fourth time, it was the first spaceflight for the remaining three. 

The @SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour continues approaching the space station nearing the Harmony module for a 12:43am ET docking. https://t.co/yuOTrYN8CV pic.twitter.com/ZCyb0LlHdx

— International Space Station (@Space_Station)

ISS astronauts welcome Crew-6 aboard

All aboard the orbiting laboratory! The four members of our @SpaceX #Crew6 mission have entered the @space_station and were greeted at their welcoming ceremony. Next: a safety briefing and orientation, then the new arrivals are off to catch some sleep. pic.twitter.com/wegjRG0qjs

— NASA (@NASA)

The Crew-6 members were welcomed by the seven astronauts living aboard the ISS after launching on separate missions. According to NASA, the Crew Dragon spacecraft named Endeavour docked at the station's Harmony module at 12:10 pm IST on March 3, about 25 hours after launching at 11:04 pm atop the Falcon 9 rocket on March 2. 

The station currently has 11 astronauts, four from the Crew-5 mission which launched on October 5, 2022, and three astronauts from the mission which launched from Kazakhstan on September 21. The latter included one NASA and two Russian cosmonauts who were supposed to return in March but got their mission extended till September this year. 

The Crew-6 mission was initially targeted for launch on February 27 but was scrubbed just 2.5 minutes before liftoff at 12:15 pm. NASA traced the issue to a clogged filter that is used to inject the right amount of an ignition fluid called TEA-TEB (trimethylaluminum-triethylboron) that ignites the Merlin engines on the first stage of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.