The crew-swap mission will enable NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return to Earth from the International Space Station.

Reaching orbit from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the newest crew includes NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, both military pilots; and Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov, both former airline pilots. They will spend the next six months at the space station, considered the normal stint, after springing Wilmore and Williams free.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 surged up through blue skies to send a crew on its way to International Space Station where the pair of NASA astronauts who flew up last summer on Boeing’s Starliner have