Christina Koch

Five months after a frightening launch abort, cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA flight engineer Tyler “Nick” Hague, along with first time flier Christina Koch, are set for liftoff Thursday on a six-hour flight to the International Space Station, boosting the lab’s crew back to six.

A Soyuz rocket arrived at a historic launch pad in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, where ground crews lifted the booster vertical to begin final preparations for liftoff Thursday with two Americans and one Russian heading for the International Space Station.