LOS ANGELES - NASA and SpaceX launched on Saturday a new crew rotation mission from the US state of Florida to the International Space Station (ISS).

The mission, codenamed "Crew-9," carries NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to ISS. It is NASA's ninth commercial crew rotation mission with SpaceX.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent the crew aboard a Dragon spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 1:17 pm Eastern Time (1817 GMT) Saturday. The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with ISS at 5:30 pm Eastern Time (2230 GMT) Sunday, according to NASA.

The Crew-9 members will conduct more than 200 science investigations involving blood clotting studies, moisture effects on plants grown in space, and vision changes in astronauts, according to NASA.

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The spacecraft is expected to return to Earth next February with the Crew-9 astronauts, as well as NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore who flew to the station in June aboard the malfunctioning Boeing Starliner and have been stranded in space ever since.