Two days after blasting off from Kazakhstan, three new crew members docked with the International Space Station early Saturday to begin nearly four months of scientific experiments and maintenance on the orbiting research outpost. The Soyuz spacecraft linked up with the space station’s Rassvet module at 12:06 a.m. EDT (0406 GMT).

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday carrying the U.S. Air Force’s next GPS 3-series navigation satellite destined for an orbit more than 12,000 miles above Earth.

Russian commander Alexey Ovchinin, NASA co-pilot Nick Hague and astronaut Christina Koch lifted off aboard a Soyuz rocket Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, heading for the International Space Station to raise the research outpost’s crew complement back to six. The Soyuz booster launched at 1914 GMT (3:14 p.m. EDT), and docking at the space station occurred at 0101 GMT (9:01 p.m. EDT).