Space station's first all-private astronaut team welcomed aboard orbiting platform

The first all-private team of astronauts ever launched to the International Space Station (ISS) were welcomed aboard the orbiting research platform on Saturday to begin a weeklong science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight.

Their arrival came about 21 hours after the four-man team representing Houston-based startup company Axiom Space Inc. lifted off on Friday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, riding atop a SpaceX-launched Falcon 9 rocket.

The Crew Dragon capsule lofted into orbit by the rocket docked with the ISS at about 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) on Saturday as the two space vehicles were flying roughly 250 miles (420 kilometres) above the central Atlantic Ocean, a live webcast of the coupling from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration showed.

The final approach was delayed for about 45 minutes by a technical glitch with a video feed used to monitor the capsule's rendezvous with the ISS, but it otherwise proceeded smoothly.

The multinational Axiom team, planning to spend eight days in orbit, was led by retired Spanish-born NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, 63, the company's vice president for business development.