The U.S.-Japanese-Russian crew of four rocketed from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Zena Cardman, a biologist and polar explorer who should have launched last year, was yanked along with another NASA crewmate to make room for Starliner’s star-crossed test pilots.

An international crew of four astronauts launched toward the International Space Station from Florida on Friday aboard a SpaceX rocket, beating gloomy weather to embark on a routine NASA mission that could be the first of many to last a couple months longer than usual.

NASA and SpaceX's Crew-11 mission is made up of two U.S. astronauts, one from Japan and a Russian cosmonaut. They'll be aboard the International Space Station for six months conducting research.