Four astronauts have launched to the International Space Station on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission, with liftoff taking place at 9:15 p.m. AEDT on Friday 13 February from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried the Dragon spacecraft into orbit with NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev aboard. The spacecraft is scheduled to dock autonomously to the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module at approximately 1:15 a.m. AEDT on Sunday 15 February.
During Dragon’s flight, SpaceX is overseeing automated spacecraft manoeuvres from its mission control centre in Hawthorne, California, while NASA continues to monitor International Space Station operations from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Following docking, the crew will join Expedition 74, currently comprising NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev. Their arrival restores the station to its standard seven-member crew complement after the departure of Crew-11 in January.
The docking marks the official start of ESA’s εpsilon mission. Sophie Adenot is expected to remain on the station for up to nine months, potentially making it the longest ESA astronaut mission to date. She will serve as crew specialist for the Columbus laboratory module and Japan’s Kibo module.
During the mission, Crew-12 will conduct research aimed at supporting future deep space exploration and delivering benefits on Earth. Planned investigations include studies of pneumonia-causing bacteria linked to cardiovascular treatments, development of on-demand intravenous fluid systems for long-duration missions, and research into how physical characteristics affect blood flow in microgravity. Other experiments will examine automated plant health monitoring and interactions between plants and nitrogen-fixing microbes to support food production in space.
Crew-12 forms part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which partners with private industry to transport astronauts to and from the space station while enabling continued scientific research in low Earth orbit.
