This photo taken on Feb. 25, 2023 shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the United States. (NASA/Handout via Xinhua)

NASA and SpaceX launched a new crew rotation mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, sending four astronauts into orbit aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

The mission, codenamed Crew-13, marks the 13th crew rotation mission to the ISS conducted by a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The crew comprises NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov.

The crew lifted off at 11:10 a.m. Eastern Time (1610 GMT) aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in southeastern Florida. The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the ISS at about 7 p.m. Eastern Time (2400 GMT) on Thursday.

During the mission, the crew will conduct a range of scientific research and technology demonstrations, including studying human stem cell-derived tissues to help researchers advance medicine, disease modeling, and future pharmaceutical screening related to heart disease and Parkinson's disease; exploring crop production in space; studying abnormalities in blood flow in space; and testing new medical diagnostic equipment for monitoring crew health, according to NASA.