CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX's groundbreaking Crew-5 mission is on its way to the International Space Station (ISS).

A Dragon capsule carrying the four Crew-5 astronauts lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from historic Launch Pad 39A here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center today (Oct. 5) at noon EDT (1600 GMT), kicking off a roughly 29-hour journey to the orbiting lab.

Those four spaceflyers are NASA's Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina. Today's liftoff made Mann the first Native American woman to reach the final frontier and Kikina the first Russian to fly on a private American spacecraft.

"I am very proud to represent Native Americans and my heritage," Mann said during a press conference on Oct. 1, shortly after the Crew-5 astronauts arrived at KSC. "We're all from very unique, different backgrounds.