FOUR ASTRONAUTS ARRIVE AT ISS AFTER PRIOR CREW'S EARLY RETURN

NEW YORK, Feb 15 (Bernama-dpa) -- A new crew has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) after NASA brought the previous team home early because of a medical issue, reported German Press Agency (dpa).

The four astronauts of Crew 12 docked with the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, live images released by NASA showed on Saturday. They launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Friday.

Crew 12 includes NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and her colleague Jack Hathaway, Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and French astronaut Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency (ESA).

It is the first mission to the ISS for Hathaway and Adenot, while Meir and Fedyaev are each on their second flight.

The team is due to spend about eight months living and conducting research on board the space station.

In mid-January, Crew 11 – US astronauts Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov – returned to Earth ahead of schedule because of a medical problem.

It was the first such case in the station's history. NASA did not give details of the issue or say which crew member was affected.

A handover between the two crews had originally been planned, as is standard practice on the ISS.

Instead, NASA astronaut Christopher Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Mikaev and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov remained on board in recent weeks to keep operations running.

International crews have been living and conducting research on board the space station continuously for around 25 years.

--BERNAMA-dpa