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.
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.
SpaceX Crew-12 astronauts
Jessica Meir
A native of Caribou, Maine, Meir was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013. Crew-12 will be Meir’s second launch to space, and second stint aboard the ISS. Her first mission lifted off in September 2019, as part of the Soyuz MS-15 mission. She spent 205 days aboard the space station during that mission, completing the first three all-woman spacewalks with crewmate NASA astronaut Christina Koch. Between missions, Meir served as NASA’s chief astronaut for the SpaceX commercial crew program and assistant to the chief astronaut for the human landing system, and has also worked in the Flight Integration division.
Jack Hathaway
Before Hathaway was selected as an astronaut in 2021, he served as a commander in the U.S. Navy, and earned degrees from the U.S. Naval Academy, Cranfield University, in England, and the U.S. Naval War College. Crew-12 will be his first launch to space, but crew dragon Freedom will become one of many vehicles he’s flown. As a naval aviator, Hathaway has over 2,500 flight hours in 30 types of aircraft, according to his NASA bio.
Sophie Adenot
French astronaut Sophie Adenot studied spacecraft flight dynamics before getting a Master of Science in human factors engineering at MIT in 2004. She joined the French Air Force in 2005 and worked in search and rescue, gaining experience flying in hostile environments. Adenot then worked as a test pilot between 2019 and 2022 before being selected as an ESA astronaut candidate in 2022, according to her ESA biography. This will be her first mission in space.
Andrey Fedyaev
Andrey Fedyaev studied air traffic control before joining the Russian Air Force in 2004, where he served until 2013, logging over 500 hours in various aircraft. Fedyaev was selected as a cosmonaut in 2012, and previously flew to the ISS as a member of SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission in 2023.
