Space station's replacement crew arrives in Florida in preparation of SpaceX launch

March 7 (UPI) -- The spacecraft that will carry the next crew of astronauts to the International Space Station has arrived at the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft is scheduled to launch no earlier than March 12 and will shuttle the Crew-10 astronauts aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The arrival of the module at the Florida launch pad signifies progress for SpaceX, which experienced delays getting it ready for launch.

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov will be on board and are scheduled to be in space for at least six months. They will replace the Crew-9, including astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who arrived at the station last June for a 10-day stay but had to remain aboard the ISS when the Boeing Starliner sent to retrieve them was deemed unsafe to bring them back to Earth.

Crew-10 is scheduled to perform research, technology demonstrations, and maintenance activities aboard the microgravity laboratory, according to NASA. Crew Dragon Endurance is slated to stay docked for about a week before bringing the Crew-9 astronauts home.

Crew-10 is currently set to launch at 7:48 p.m. EDT on March 12. It will chase the orbiting ISS for roughly 14 hours until it catches up and prepares to dock. Endurance is tentatively set to dock with the space station at approximately 10 a.m. on March 13.