SpaceX launched a four-person crew into orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Thursday. The mission begins a six-month expedition to the International Space Station. Departing Space Launch Complex-40 at 11:10 a.m. EDT (15:10 UTC), the crew rode a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft. Nine minutes later, they were in orbit. The vehicle began closing in on the station for a docking scheduled that evening.
The launch had been delayed from mid-September. Engineers needed to replace a balky valve in the Dragon spacecraft's propulsion system. The task involved cutting into a propellant line inside the ship to swap out the faulty component.