{"id":458537,"date":"2026-02-06T23:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T23:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/458537\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T23:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T23:07:14","slug":"spacex-crew-12-launch-date-to-be-moved-up-what-to-know-about-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/458537\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Crew-12 launch date to be moved up. What to know about mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next group of astronauts<\/a> are preparing to head to the International Space Station<\/a> for a lengthy stay.<\/p>\n

NASA is hoping to accelerate the launch of a joint mission with SpaceX known as Crew-12<\/a> after four other astronauts on a previous mission had to be flown home early. That mission, Crew-11, came to an abrupt end when one of the crew members experienced a health issue that required an unprecedented medical evacuation<\/a> from the orbital laboratory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Because the space <\/a>station has been understaffed since the Crew-11 departure on Jan. 14, NASA announced plans to get the Crew-12 astronauts on their way to the outpost a little sooner. Standard protocol, after all, is for outgoing astronauts to await the arrival of their replacements during what’s known as a holdover period before they head back to Earth.<\/p>\n

2025 spaceflight in photos. See images of Blue Origin, SpaceX missions<\/p>\n

1 of 13<\/p>\n

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander captures its shadow on the moon’s surface after completing a successful landing March 2 near a volcanic feature on the moon called Mons Latreille. The vehicle became the first of two landers manufactured by a U.S. company to reach the moon is 2025 in crucial missions to lay the groundwork for NASA to return humans to the lunar surface in the years ahead.<\/p>\n

Here’s everything to know <\/a>about Crew-12, including the potential launch date and the names of the astronauts selected for the mission.<\/p>\n

When is the Crew 12 launch date?<\/p>\n

The Crew-12 mission, originally slated for no earlier than Feb. 15, could now get off the ground as early as 6:01 a.m. ET, Wednesday, Feb. 11, according to NASA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What is the NASA, SpaceX Crew 12 mission?<\/p>\n

As the name suggests,\u00a0Crew-12<\/a>\u00a0will be NASA and SpaceX’s 12th human science expedition to the International Space Station. The astronauts are due to be stationed at the orbital laboratory for nine months, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

The series of missions are contracted under NASA’s\u00a0commercial crew program<\/a>. The program allows the space agency to pay SpaceX to launch and transport astronauts and cargo to orbit<\/a> aboard the company’s own vehicles, freeing up NASA to focus on\u00a0its Artemis lunar program<\/a>\u00a0and other spaceflight missions, including future\u00a0crewed voyages to Mars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NASA is also hoping to certify Boeing’s Starliner capsule<\/a> to add a second operational vehicle for missions to the ISS before the station is retired by 2030<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SpaceX crew missions launch from Florida<\/p>\n

SpaceX uses its Falcon 9 rocket \u2013\u00a0one of the most active in the world<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 to launch the crew missions in Florida, typically from\u00a0NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center<\/a>. The astronauts themselves ride a Dragon crew capsule \u2013\u00a0the only U.S. spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts<\/a>\u00a0to and from the space station \u2013 that separates from the rocket in orbit.<\/p>\n

This time around, Crew-12 will instead lift off from Launch Pad 40 at the neighboring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. That’s both because NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is still vertical at Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center for the now-delayed Artemis 2 moon mission<\/a>, and because operations are paused at the historic Launch Pad 39A<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SpaceX mission to replace astronauts at ISS after medical evacuation<\/p>\n

The accelerated launch of Crew-12 became necessary when NASA medically evacuated the four Crew-11 astronauts<\/a> Jan. 15 after one them experienced a health issue.<\/p>\n

Neither NASA nor the astronauts themselves<\/a> have disclosed the name of the crew member or the nature of the medical concern that prompted the early end to the mission.<\/p>\n

The crew members \u2013\u00a0NASA astronauts\u00a0Zena Cardman<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mike Fincke<\/a>, Japanese astronaut\u00a0Kimiya Yui<\/a>\u00a0of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov \u2013 landed safely off the coast of California near San Diego.<\/p>\n

2025 was a year of cosmic discoveries. Here’s a look back at 6<\/p>\n

1 of 11<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope last observed come 3I\/ATLAS on Nov. 30, about four months after Hubble’s first look at the interstellar comet. 3I\/ATLAS became one of the biggest cosmic stories of the year when astronomers deemed it to be the third-ever discovered interstellar object in our solar system originating from an entirely different part of the galaxy.<\/p>\n

Who are the astronauts on the Crew-12 mission?\"The<\/p>\n

The four members of NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station pose together for a crew portrait inside a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. From left are, Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot.<\/p>\n

The Crew-12 mission is composed of a contingent of four<\/a> international astronauts, including two Americans.<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at the crew<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Mission commander Jessica Meir<\/a>, a marine biologist from Maine who was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013 and is making her second trip to the space station;<\/p>\n

Pilot Jack Hathaway<\/a>, a Navy pilot from Connecticut who is making his first spaceflight after he was selected as part of the 2021 NASA astronaut class;<\/p>\n

Mission specialist Sophie Adenot<\/a>, an astronaut with the European Space Agency from France making her first spaceflight;<\/p>\n

Mission specialist Andrey Fedyaev, a cosmonaut with Russia’s Roscosmos space agency making his second flight to the ISS.<\/p>\n

What astronauts are on the International Space Station?<\/p>\n

A skeleton crew of just three astronauts<\/a> are living and working aboard the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

NASA astronaut Chris Williams<\/a>\u00a0and Russians Sergey Mikaev and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, who arrived at the end of November<\/a> on a Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, are also the newest additions at the orbital laboratory.<\/p>\n

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: When is the Crew 12 launch date? SpaceX to send 4 astronauts to ISS<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The next group of astronauts are preparing to head to the International Space Station for a lengthy stay.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,118380,9693,5341,307,28137,187688,66,6888],"class_list":["post-458537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-crew-members","tag-international-space-station","tag-kennedy-space-center","tag-nasa","tag-nasa-astronauts","tag-orbital-laboratory","tag-science","tag-spacex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}