SpaceX blasted four astronauts to the International Space Station on Wednesday morning in a mission that comes as billionaire founder Elon Musk prepares to add Twitter Inc. to the roster of companies he runs.

A Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Falcon 9 rocket with a Crew Dragon spacecraft stacked on top of it launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:52 a.m. ET, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The crew vehicle docked with the orbiting research facility almost 16 hours later, according to a SpaceX live stream.