The next crewed mission to the International Space Station is soon to get underway.
SpaceX's upcoming Crew-12 launch for NASA will fly a pair of veteran astronauts and a pair of rookies to the orbital lab for an extended stay. The earliest launch opportunity for the Falcon 9 rocket set to loft the Crew Dragon spacecraft "Freedom" and crew to orbit falls at 5:15 a.m. EST (1015 GMT) on Feb. 13.
Crew-12 will be commanded by NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, with mission pilot Jack Hathaway, and mission specialists Sophie Adenot from the European Space Agency and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. They'll join a sparse Expedition 74 crew of three currently occupying the ISS, left somewhat shorthanded after the early departure of Crew-11 astronauts, whose mission was cut short due to an undisclosed medical situation.
Fedyaev's addition to the mission came later than his crewmates, after cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev was pulled from the manifest in December, potentially for a U.S. national security violation.
The quartet are scheduled to remain in low Earth orbit for eight months compared to the typical six-month crew, made possible by a recent expansion of Dragon's certified durational capabilities at the ISS.
