NASA is just hours away from its first crewed launch of 2026 and the first since Crew-11 flew into orbit last August.
Just ahead of Crew-12’s launch, the space agency released a short trailer (above) for the mission, which will send four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The crew will travel aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, which will be launched into orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev are scheduled to launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Friday, February 13, at 5:15 a.m. ET. If you want to watch a live stream of the event, Daily Sparkz has all the information you need.
The mission team had hoped to launch early Wednesday, but poor weather conditions in the ascent corridor led them to postpone the launch until Thursday. But then another forecast pushed the date back to Friday. Luckily, everything is looking good for launch in just a few hours.
“Weather researchers have provided an improved forecast for conditions at the launch site, with a 90% chance of acceptable weather at launch time,” NASA said in a post on its website. The team will make a final forecast around 10 p.m. ET, a few hours before the crew gets dressed. Be sure to check NASA’s X account for last-minute schedule changes.
The crew will spend eight months aboard the orbital outpost, conducting research, technology demonstrations and maintenance operations around 250 miles above Earth.
“We do research on the International Space Station because it offers a very unique and novel environment that we cannot reproduce here on Earth,” says Jessica Meir in the NASA trailer on her second mission to the ISS. “We’ll be conducting a plethora of scientific experiments, ranging from physiological and medical experiments to radiation materials research experiments, deploying small satellites, you name it. In fact, every aspect of science is represented in the work we do on the International Space Station.”
Jack Hathaway adds that it’s “important to push the boundaries of what’s possible – if we’re just happy with what we have, we’ll never develop the technology that makes our lives better.”
