Crew members, astronaut Kate Rubins of NASA, cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian Federal Space Agency and astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, pose for a picture behind a glass wall during a news conference before their launch to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 6, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

Thursday's launch marked the debut flight of a next-generation Russian Soyuz capsule, currently the only vehicles capable of ferrying crewmembers to and from the station, a $100 billion project of 15 nations.

Upgrades to the Soyuz include better shielding to protect the spacecraft from micrometeoroid and orbital debris impacts, additional batteries, improved communications and tracking equipment, new steering thrusters, larger solar arrays, an improved rendezvous and docking system and a GPS-equipped landing system.

NASA hopes to resume flying station crewmembers from the United States in 2018 aboard capsules under development by Boeing Co and privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX.

A docking system that the new commercial US spaceships will need to park at the station is scheduled to be launched aboard a SpaceX cargo ship on July 18.