Two People, a French astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut mentioned Sunday they’re desirous to blast off Wednesday on a flight to the Worldwide House Station, changing 4 crew members who lower their mission brief and returned to Earth final month due to a medical concern.
Crew 12 commander Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, European House Company astronaut Sophie Adenot and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev are scheduled for launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket on the Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station at 6:01 a.m. EST Wednesday. If all goes effectively, they will meet up with the lab Thursday, shifting in for docking at 10:30 a.m.
SpaceX 
The flight had been on maintain till later this month, after NASA’s Artemis II moon mission launched and returned to Earth. However the moonshot was delayed to March due to a hydrogen leak in its House Launch System rocket, clearing the best way for NASA to maneuver up the Falcon 9 house station flight.
Meir and her crewmates flew to the Kennedy House Heart from Houston on Friday. Their Falcon 9 rocket was erected on the close by House Pressure Station early Saturday, and SpaceX check fired its first stage engines earlier than daybreak Sunday to set the stage for launch.
“We arrived a few days in the past, and that is actually beginning to really feel like we’re about to launch,” Meir mentioned throughout a digital information convention on the Kennedy House Heart, the place the crew is in pre-flight medical quarantine. “You already know, we have seen the rocket. We have been spending trip on the seaside with our households. We have been excited about all of the issues, final minute, issues that we have to maintain. So it is getting very, very actual.”
Jessica Meir 
In a publish on the social media platform X, she shared a brief video of herself and her three-year-old daughter taking part in with an air-propelled toy rocket on the seaside.
“We had some very welcome household time on the seaside within the Florida sunshine,” she mentioned on X. “My daughter’s rocketry abilities are on level! Let’s mild this rocket!”
Since the early departure of the 4 Crew 11 fliers whom Meir and her crew are changing, the station has been staffed by a diminished crew of three: commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, fellow cosmonaut Sergey Mikaev, and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who had been launched to the outpost final November aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Meir and firm will enhance the station crew again to seven long-duration occupants, giving Williams assist in sustaining techniques within the U.S. section of the lab. They’re going to additionally be capable of resume a full slate of experiments and regain the power for two-person NASA spacewalks, emergency or in any other case, which depend on the buddy system for security.
NASA 
Crew 11 commander Zena Cardman, copilot Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov initially deliberate to return to Earth round Feb. 20, after a five-day “handover” with their Crew 12 replacements.
However NASA ordered Cardman and firm again to Earth on Jan. 15, after one of many Crew 11 fliers skilled an undisclosed medical concern. Crew 11 got here down safely, and all 4 crew members appeared wholesome and in good spirits at a post-flight information convention.
Meir mentioned that whereas Crew 12 didn’t get a crew-to-crew in-space handover from Crew 11, they’re greater than prepared to maneuver into the outpost and get to work. Meir and Fedyaev have every logged a long-duration keep aboard the station whereas Hathaway, a former F/A-18E service pilot, and Adenot, a French air power helicopter check pilot, are making their first house flight.
“Chris has been up there since across the time of Thanksgiving, so he’s very effectively settled in. Now we have talked to him as a crew,” Meir mentioned. “We have talked to him individually a number of instances. He is doing rather well, and has that place working. It should be in excellent form after we rise up there.”
She mentioned her crew had additionally met with Crew 11 “and had slightly little bit of a debrief so they may cross alongside some pertinent issues. There are some variations on the house station from the time that Andrey and I flew earlier than, however total, as an entire, it hasn’t modified that a lot.”
