A Russian astronaut is hitchhiking to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's next mission.

SPACEPORT OF CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - On Wednesday, Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX was scheduled to send into orbit the next long-duration crew of the International Space Station, consisting of a Russian cosmonaut riding shotgun with two American astronauts and a Japanese astronaut.

The Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Endurance Crew Dragon capsule was scheduled to blast out from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at noon EDT (1600 GMT).

The four-person crew is scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) in about 29 hours on Thursday evening to begin a 150-day science mission aboard the orbiting laboratory approximately 250 miles (420 km) above Earth.

Crew-5 is the name given to the fifth full-fledged ISS crew that NASA has sent into space on a SpaceX vehicle since Tesla owner and SpaceX founder Elon Musk began flying American astronauts into orbit in May of 2020.

Nicole Aunapu Mann, a seasoned combat pilot, making history as the first indigenous woman deployed to orbit by NASA and the first woman to take the commander's seat of a SpaceX Crew Dragon, is in charge of the newest crew.

Anna Kikina, 38, is the only female cosmonaut currently serving with the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the first Russian to fly on an American spacecraft amid heightened international tensions over the conflict in Ukraine. In 2002, a cosmonaut was the last person to ride a U.S. rocketship to orbit on a NASA space shuttle.

THANK YOU, WITH LOVE, FROM RUSSIA

Under a new ride-sharing agreement agreed by NASA and Roscosmos in July, Kikina is effectively exchanging places with a NASA astronaut who boarded a Russian Soyuz trip to the ISS last month.

Kikina is set to become only the fifth Russian woman to travel into space, joining a cosmonaut corps traditionally dominated by men.

She recently shrugged off the attention garnered by her Roscosmos status, saying in an interview, "In general, for me, it doesn't matter." However, I know the weight of accountability I have as the leader of my country's citizens.

Captain Mann, 45, is an expert in fluid mechanics and has a master's degree in engineering. He's flown in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mann will make history by becoming the first Native American woman to travel to space as a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. John Herrington, who flew on a shuttle mission in 2002, was the only other indigenous American to go into space.

Josh Cassada, 49, a U.S. Navy aviator and test pilot with a doctorate in high-energy particle physics, is Mann's NASA astronaut classmate and pilot for Wednesday's launch.

Veteran robotics expert and JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata, 59, round up the team. This is Wakata's eighth space mission.

Three Americans, one Italian, two Russians, and a NASA astronaut who launched in a Soyuz live on the ISS.

Many of the recruits' duties will involve medical research, such as the 3-D "bio-printing" of human tissue or the investigation of microorganisms cultured in microgravity.

The U.S.-Russian-led collaboration that includes Canada, Japan, and 11 European countries has been continuously occupying the ISS since November 2000. At the length of a football field, the International Space Station is the largest artificial object in orbit.

After the fall of the Soviet Union and the conclusion of the Cold War tensions that sparked the original U.S.-Soviet space race, the outpost was established in part to repair relations between Washington and Moscow.

In light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, which prompted the Biden administration to impose severe sanctions against the Russian government, cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos has been tested like never before.

Sergei Krikalev, a top Roscosmos official, said his organisation has Moscow's approval to continue with ISS until 2024 and expects to secure Kremlin "permission" to extend the connection beyond until Russia constructs a successor space station.

NASA predicts that the ISS will be able to function with its present partners until 2030.