The first woman from Saudi Arabia to visit space was a stem cell researcher named Rayyanah Barnawi on Sunday.
A retired NASA astronaut who now works for Axiom Space, the company that planned the journey from Kennedy Space Center, commanded the ticket-holding crew that was launched by SpaceX.
The trip also included a U.S. millionaire who runs a sports car racing team.
Since a Saudi king launched the shuttle Discovery in 1985, the Saudi-Arabian astronauts are the first members of their nation to fly on a rocket.
Ms. Barnawi traveled with fighter pilot Ali al-Qarni from the Royal Saudi Air Force.
The crew will stay aboard the space station for less than a week before returning to Earth with a splashdown off the coast of Florida. They are scheduled to reach the space station on Monday morning.
“Hello from outer space! It feels amazing to be viewing the earth from this capsule,” Ms Barnawi said.
This is Axiom's second privately arranged voyage to the space station.
The first was finished last year by a senior NASA astronaut, three businessmen, and three other people.
Shoffner and Saudi Arabia would pay for the 10-day excursion, but Axiom did not specify how much. The company had previously estimated that each ticket would cost $55 million.
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