An international crew of four astronauts had their planned launch to the International Space Station from Florida on Thursday postponed over bad weather, delaying a mission that had been watched by a rare gathering of senior Russian space officials in town for a meeting with NASA's acting chief.

SpaceX delivered a fresh crew to the International Space Station on Saturday, making the trip in a quick 15 hours. The four U.S., Russian and Japanese astronauts pulled up in their SpaceX capsule after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.