New Delhi, Feb. 15 -- Four SpaceX Crew-12 members successfully entered the International Space Station and joined Expedition 74 on Saturday to begin a long-duration space research mission.

Crew-12 replaces Crew-11 that was forced to return to Earth early over a medical issue.

The US space agency's Crew-12 arrived at the orbiting laboratory after a journey of about 34 hours that started with blastoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev entered the ISS after opening the hatches at 5:14 pm EST between the space station and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

Meir, a marine biologist, and Fedyaev, a forme...