Crew-12 Lifts Off on Eight-Month ISS Mission

Crew-12 headed to the International Space Station this morning aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom. When they arrive tomorrow, the ISS will be restored to its normal crew complement of seven. The unexpected early return of Crew-11 in January meant that only one NASA astronaut is aboard the ISS right now with two Russian colleagues. Freedom is delivering two NASA astronauts, one Russian, and one from the European Space Agency who will spend eight months conducting scientific research and maintaining the earth-orbiting laboratory that has been permanently occupied by international crews for more than 25 years.

NASA’s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA’s Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos’s Andrey Fedyaev lifted off from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:15 am ET.

.@NASA‘s @SpaceX Crew-12 mission has launched to orbit and is headed toward the International Space Station for a docking at 3:15 p.m. EST on Saturday, Feb. 14. pic.twitter.com/QAf8HEmlKL

— International Space Station (@Space_Station) February 13, 2026

This was only the second crew launch from SpaceX’s SLC-40 instead of Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s adjacent Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX recently built a landing zone at SLC-40, LZ-40, and Falcon 9’s first stage made the first landing there this morning.

Falcon 9 has landed, completing our first landing at LZ-40! pic.twitter.com/PZXeOYdbaN

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 13, 2026

Crew-12 will stay for eight months instead of six, until now the standard duration for NASA crews. Budget constraints led NASA to decide to launch fewer missions to the ISS. One limiting factor was that Crew Dragon was certified for only 210 days in orbit, but NASA and SpaceX conducted tests to re-certify it for eight months.

When Crew-11 launched on August 1, 2025, they had a nominal duration of six months, but with an option to stay if the extended certification process was complete. One of those crew members experienced a “medical concern,” however, and Crew-11 had to return unexpectedly in January after only five-and-a-half months.

The usual ISS crew complement is seven, four who come and go on Crew Dragon and three on Russia’s Soyuz. The U.S. and Russian segments of ISS are interdependent. To ensure at least one Russian and one American is aboard at all times, NASA and Roscosmos include a crew member from the other’s country on every flight. With Crew-11’s early departure, that left NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev on board.

NASA accelerated Crew-12’s launch by a few days. They originally were supposed to launch on February 15. NASA moved that up to February 11, but unfavorable weather along the ascent corridor postponed it until today. Crew Dragon can separate from the Falcon 9 rocket at any time from launch to orbit if anything goes awry, so the weather has to be good not only in Florida but all along the launch path up the East Coast and over towards Ireland.

Crew-12 is scheduled to dock at 3:15 pm ET tomorrow, February 14, exactly one month after Crew-11 departed. NASA docking coverage begins at 1:15 pm ET.

In March and April, Crew-12 will do the two spacewalks that were planned for Crew-11. Which astronauts will conduct them hasn’t been announced.