An international crew of four astronauts launched toward the International Space Station from Florida on Friday aboard a SpaceX rocket, embarking on a routine NASA mission that could be the first of many to last a couple months longer than usual.

NASA and SpaceX's Crew-11 mission is made up of two U.S. astronauts, one from Japan and a Russian cosmonaut. They'll be aboard the International Space Station for six months conducting research.

Scientists are sending several strains of disease-causing bacteria to the International Space Station as part of the Crew-11 mission. This experiment isn't the plot to some cheesy horror film, but a scientific investigation from the Sheba Medical Center in Israel and the US-based company Space Tango with the goal of better understanding how bacteria spread and behave under extreme conditions.