The Falcon rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida just after midnight.
Nearly 80 spectators from the United Arab Emirates watched from the launch pad as astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi lifted off on his six-month mission. In Dubai and elsewhere in the United Arab Emirates, schools and offices paused to watch the launch live.
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The Dragon capsule, due to arrive at the space station on Friday, also carries two Americans, NASA’s Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, a former researcher, and Russian Andrei Fedyaev, a space newcomer.
A first launch attempt was aborted at the last minute on Monday due to a clogged filter in the rocket engine’s ignition system.
The newcomers to the International Space Station will replace a crew from the United States, Russia and Japan that have been stationed there since October. The other residents of the station are two Russians and one American.
Sultan Al-Neyadi, a communications engineer, served as deputy for the UAE’s first astronaut, Hazzaa al-Mansoori, who piloted a Russian rocket to the space station for a week-long visit in 2019.
Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman was the first Arab in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, launched in 1985. Two years later he was followed by Syrian astronaut Muhammed Faris, launched from Russia. The two stayed in space for about a week.
Later in the spring, Sultan Al-Neyadi will be joined by two Saudi astronauts flying to the space station on a short private SpaceX flight paid for by their government.
Crew chief Stephen Bowen reported that the United States and Russia have continued to work together on the International Space Station despite tensions caused by the war in Ukraine.