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SpaceX launch is latest sign of lasting Russia-U.S. space partnership

The company’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off with two American astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut

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Updated October 5, 2022 at 3:03 p.m. EDT|Published October 5, 2022 at 9:28 a.m. EDT
On Oct. 5, NASA launched a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying four astronauts including Col. Nicole Mann, the first Native American woman to reach space. (Video: NASA)
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SpaceX launched another quartet of astronauts to the International Space Station on Wednesday, sending off a crew that includes a Russian cosmonaut as part of a partnership between the United States and Russia that endures despite tensions over the war in Ukraine.

The Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifted off at noon from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying two NASA astronauts, Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, as well as Koichi Wakata from Japan and Anna Kikina of Russia.