{"id":298477,"date":"2026-02-14T23:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T23:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/298477\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T23:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T23:10:10","slug":"spacex-dragon-astronauts-make-valentines-day-docking-at-space-station-to-boost-skeleton-crew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/298477\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Dragon astronauts make Valentine’s Day docking at space station to boost skeleton crew"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-12 Arrival & Welcome Remarks – YouTube
\n\"NASA\u2019s<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The residents of the International Space Station received a special Valentine’s Day treat.<\/p>\n

SpaceX<\/a>‘s Crew-12 astronaut mission docked with the short-staffed International Space Station<\/a> (ISS) on Saturday (Feb. 14) at 3:15 p.m. EST (2015 GMT), ending a 34-hour orbital chase.<\/p>\n

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“With that gentle contact, we have bridged the legacy of humankind’s continuous presence in space. It has been more than 25 years at this very site,” radioed Jessica Meir, Crew-12 commander. “The International Space Station is more than a structure, it is a promise kept. Decades in the making, built by nations, sustained by trust and partnerships, and powered by science, innovation and curiosity.”<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

“As we look back at Earth through these windows, we are reminded that cooperation is not just possible, it is essential. Up here there are no borders and hope is universal,” she said.<\/p>\n

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SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Freedom” docks to the International Space Station, delivering the four members of Crew-12 for an eight month stay on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (Image credit: NASA)<\/p>\n

“After docking, the crew will change out of their spacesuits and prepare cargo for offload before opening the hatch between Dragon and the space station\u2019s Harmony module around 5 p.m. [EST],” NASA officials said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Crew-12 launched<\/a> atop a Falcon 9<\/a> rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station<\/a> early Friday morning (Feb. 13), sending four astronauts toward the ISS aboard the Crew Dragon capsule “Freedom.”<\/p>\n

Those crewmembers are NASA’s Meir and Jack Hathaway, the mission’s commander and pilot, respectively; mission specialist Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency<\/a>; and mission specialist Andrey Fedyaev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n

Crew-12 is the first spaceflight for Hathaway and Adenot and the second for Meir and Fedyaev. The cosmonaut was a late addition to the crew, coming aboard in early December to replace his countryman Oleg Artemyev, who was allegedly pulled<\/a> for violating the U.S. law known as ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations).<\/p>\n

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A Falcon 9 rocket launches SpaceX’s Crew-12 astronaut mission toward the International Space Station from Florida’s Space Coast on Feb. 13, 2026. (Image credit: NASA\/Aubrey Gemignani)<\/p>\n

The Crew-12 astronauts are expected to live and work aboard the ISS through October, making their stint a bit longer than the usual six-month crew rotation.<\/p>\n

The quartet is joining up with three other spaceflyers on the ISS \u2014 NASA’s Chris Williams and cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev. The trio have had the orbiting lab to themselves since Jan. 15, when the four-person Crew-11 <\/a>mission headed home to Earth.<\/p>\n

Crew-11 departed a month earlier than planned due to a medical issue with one of its astronauts, leaving the ISS with a skeleton crew for longer than anticipated. (NASA has not identified the astronaut or given details about the concern.) It was the first medical evacuation<\/a> in the history of the ISS, which has been staffed continuously since November 2000.<\/p>\n

Seven has been the nominal crew size on the ISS since 2020. The original baseline was three; that was doubled to six in 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-12 Arrival & Welcome Remarks – YouTube Watch On The residents of the International Space Station…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-298477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}