With NASA’s delayed Artemis II moon mission on maintain, SpaceX pressed forward with a Friday the thirteenth launch of 4 recent crew members to the Worldwide Area Station in a mission to interchange 4 fliers who got here house early final month due to a medical situation one was having.
Crew 12 commander Jessica Meir, pilot Jack Hathaway, European Area Company astronaut Sophie Adenot and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, strapped right into a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket, blasted off from pad 40 on the Cape Canaveral Area Power Station at 5:15 a.m. EST.
Jim WATSON / AFP through Getty Pictures 
Lighting up the pre-dawn sky, the Falcon 9 streaked away on a northeasterly trajectory aligned with the house station’s orbit, on the right track for docking Saturday round 3:15 p.m. to spice up the lab’s crew from three again to a full complement of seven.
“It seems Friday the thirteenth is a really fortunate day,” SpaceX Launch Management radioed as soon as the crew reached orbit.
“That was fairly a journey,” Meir responded.
Crew 12 initially anticipated to take off after 4 different astronauts ventured to the moon and again in NASA’s Artemis II mission. However the moonshot was delayed to early March due to hydrogen gasoline leaks in that crew’s enormous Area Launch System rocket. That, in flip, cleared the way in which for NASA to maneuver up Crew 12’s launch to Feb. 11.
However excessive winds off shore within the Atlantic Ocean, the place the Crew 12 fliers must splash down in an ascent emergency, then prompted NASA to face down till Friday, when calmer seas and decrease winds had been predicted.
Whereas Crew 12 made closing preparations to fly, engineers ran one other take a look at at close by pad 39B Thursday to examine the effectiveness of latest seals in an umbilical connecting gasoline strains to the SLS moon rocket. The seals are meant to forestall the form of hydrogen leakage seen throughout a “wet-dress rehearsal” countdown Feb. 2.
NASA didn’t publicize the take a look at, however the company stated later it didn’t go as deliberate due to what sources described as a frozen filter in floor tools.
The difficulty should be addressed earlier than engineers can try a re-test of the brand new seals, adopted by one other full-up gown rehearsal fueling take a look at to clear the way in which for launch as early as March 3.
Substitute crew units sights on house station, boosting employees again to seven
Within the near-term, Crew 12 has its sights set on becoming a member of house station commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, fellow cosmonaut Sergey Mikaev and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who had been launched to the lab final November aboard a Russian Soyuz ferry ship. They’ll assist the brand new crew stand up to hurry on the intricacies of station operations.
Meir and Fedyaev will not want a lot assist as a result of each are station veterans. Their crewmates are making their first journey to orbit, however Hathaway and Adenot carry all kinds of operational expertise to the desk.
SpaceX 
Hathaway is a veteran F/A-18E fighter pilot with greater than 500 plane provider landings to his credit score whereas Adenot is a French air drive helicopter take a look at pilot with greater than 3,000 hours flying time beneath her belt. She’s additionally an skilled sky and SCUBA diver and an authorized yoga teacher.
Meir holds a Ph.D. in marine biology and took part in three all-female spacewalks throughout her first station keep in 2019-20. She and Fedyaev are wanting ahead to serving to their rookie crewmates rapidly stand up to hurry once they get to the ISS.
“Each of us are actually excited to carry our previous experiences and experience to the very first flight for (Hathaway and Adenot),” she stated. “We love this sort of stability that we now have, of two veterans and two rookies, to hit the bottom operating after we get aboard the Worldwide Area Station.”
Fedyaev, who flew to the house station aboard a Crew Dragon in 2023, was added to Crew 12 in December after veteran cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev was eliminated. reportedly for violating safety restrictions throughout coaching at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, Calif., headquarters. Roscosmos, the Russian house company, stated solely that Artemyev was reassigned to different work.
Fedyaev’s prior expertise and coaching with SpaceX and NASA enabled him to affix Crew 12 with little impression on launch preparations.
Early return of 1 station crew prompts accelerated launch of replacements
Crew 12 is changing Crew 11 commander Zena Cardman, co-pilot Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov. Crew 11 initially was anticipated to return to Earth round Feb. 20, after a “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 situation. Crew 11 got here down safely and all 4 crew members appeared wholesome and in good spirits at a post-flight information convention.
However their departure left the station with a single NASA astronaut aboard — Williams — to function techniques within the U.S. phase of the advanced. It additionally introduced NASA analysis to a digital standstill.
“What it means is, actually, there’s simply fewer palms on board to do among the work,” stated house station Program Supervisor Dina Contella.
“On the U.S. working phase, if we had been to have a significant failure, then we want to have a second USOS crew member to have the ability to exit and carry out a fancy spacewalk.”
At current, she stated, there are not any main issues aboard the house station. Even so, NASA requested SpaceX to maneuver the Crew 12 launch up by a number of days to get the station crew again to full energy as quickly as potential.
Earlier than the Artemis II launch was delayed, NASA was planning a ship-to-ship name between the moon-bound astronauts and the house station crew. That ought to nonetheless be potential regardless of the moon mission delay.
Crew members face busy schedule in orbit
Meir actually hopes so, as a result of her companion throughout these all-female spacewalks was Artemis II crew member Christina Koch. And her astronaut class included Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, and she or he stated she’s shut mates with commander Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
“I might be actually excited to have the ability to discuss to Christina, and likewise my classmate Victor Glover and type of my astronaut uncles, Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen,” she stated earlier than the moon mission slipped to March. “We’re all very excited to be all in house on the identical time.”
NASA 
However largely, Meir is wanting ahead to the science her crew will conduct throughout a roughly eight-month keep aboard the house station.
“We are going to do experiments starting from bone and muscle well being, (learning) our blood movement, what is going on on in all of those techniques through the adjustments that we expertise in microgravity,” she stated.
“There’s an experiment that is wanting on the small muscle tissues in our necks and the way they will help us in numerous gravitational phases. There will probably be photos of our brains taken pre- and post-flight to take a look at any adjustments to the mind that occurred throughout microgravity and house missions.”
The astronauts will proceed ongoing research of how microgravity impacts the imaginative and prescient of some long-duration fliers, apparently by altering the form of the attention over time. Apparently, these adjustments aren’t at all times for the worst.
Meir stated she wanted glasses earlier than her first flight, however her imaginative and prescient improved to 20-15 over the course of her keep in house.
“Fairly attention-grabbing for me, it truly turned out to be fairly advantageous,” she stated. “However in fact, we’re learning this actually completely, as a result of we need to be sure that we haven’t any long-term harm to astronauts’ imaginative and prescient, or to the eyes themselves.
“The great factor is, we have not seen any deficits long-term that exist past the missions, however we have to accumulate extra knowledge.”
The crew may even take a look at a brand new train machine developed by the European Area Company that is designed to assist astronauts keep match throughout future flights to the moon and Mars. And they’re going to work with touchdown simulator software program to be taught extra about how microgravity may have an effect on astronauts setting down on the moon or Mars.
Jessica Meir 
“We also have a new experiment known as Chill out Professional that Sophie and I will probably be collaborating in that is meditation and mindfulness and the way that may profit astronauts on house missions,” Meir stated.
Nevertheless it will not be all work. Meir is bringing a piccolo along with her and Fedyaev plans to play a harmonica he introduced aboard on his first flight.
Together with the harmonica, “there have been three guitars throughout our earlier mission on board, Fedyaev stated. “We used to sing collectively, and it was like karaoke.
“We sang completely different languages, or I might play the guitar, and everyone would sing the phrases from the music they seemed up on-line. So we’ll most likely meet and play our musical devices and possibly truly give a live performance!”
Adenot would be the second French girl to fly in house. Doctor Claudie Haigneré, one among seven French astronauts chosen in 1985, spent 16 days aboard the Russian Mir house station in 1996. Adenot stated Haigneré has acted as a form of mentor for her and deliberate to attend the Crew 12 launch.
“I bear in mind very nicely the primary launch of Claudie Haigneré,” Adenot stated. “I used to be 14 years outdated, and that day it type of clicked in my thoughts. She was the primary French girl astronaut flying to house and earlier than, solely males.
“And you recognize, if you’re a young person, you are simply in search of inspiration, and if somebody has achieved it already, then it clicks in your thoughts: say, if a girl has achieved it already, then why not me?”
Meir additionally dreamed of spaceflight when she was a toddler and stated she will’t wait to get again aboard the house station.
“Once I flew final time, I didn’t have a husband and a toddler, and now I’ve each,” she stated. “On the finish of my seven months, final time, I truly needed to remain longer, I wasn’t prepared to return house. And this time, maybe will really feel a bit of bit completely different since I will be leaving my three-year-old again right here.
“However the whole lot that we’re doing on board the house station is so thrilling, it retains us going, retains us invigorated, and it is easy to not miss issues again at house.
“I hope that what we’re doing will probably be thrilling sufficient and vital sufficient, noteworthy sufficient, that at some point when she’s sufficiently old, she’ll respect that point away.”
