SpaceX rocket launches crew of four toward space station

A SpaceX rocket soared into orbit from Florida early on Friday with a crew of two U.S. NASA astronauts, a French astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut headed to the International Space Station (ISS) for an eight-month science mission in microgravity.

The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule dubbed "Freedom," was launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, along Florida's Atlantic Coast, at about 5:15 a.m. Eastern Time (1015 GMT).

'That was quite a ride'

Nine minutes into its flight, the Falcon 9's upper-stage rocket had accelerated to more than 17,000 miles per hour (27,360 kilometers per hour) before thrusting the Crew Dragon into orbit. By then, the reusable lower-stage booster had flown itself back to Earth and touched down safely at a Cape Canaveral landing pad.

The four crew were set to reach the space station on Saturday afternoon after a 34-hour flight, docking with the orbiting laboratory platform some 250 miles (420 kilometers) above Earth.

The mission, designated Crew-12, marks the 12th long-duration ISS team that NASA has flown aboard a SpaceX launch vehicle since the private rocket venture founded in 2002 by billionaire Elon Musk began sending U.S. astronauts to orbit in May 2020.

Crew-12 was led by Jessica Meir, 48, a veteran astronaut and marine biologist on her second trip to the space station, nearly seven years after making history with NASA colleague Christina Koch by completing history's first all-female spacewalk.

"Thank you team, that was quite a ride," Meir radioed to the SpaceX flight control center near Los Angeles. "Crew-12 is grateful and ready for the journey ahead. We're on our way."

Joining her on the flight was Jack Hathaway, 43, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and rookie astronaut; European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, 43, a master helicopter pilot from France; and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, a former military pilot on his second mission to the ISS.

Orbiting laboratory

Upon arrival, the team will get busy with a host of scientific, medical and technical research tasks in microgravity, according to NASA.

Those include studies of pneumonia-causing bacteria to improve treatments on Earth, and experiments with plant and nitrogen-fixing microbe interactions to boost food production in space.

Crew-12 will be welcomed aboard the space station by three current ISS occupants – NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev.

Four Crew-11 members who were supposed to have stayed aboard until the arrival of Crew-12 departed a few weeks early, when an undisclosed serious health condition affecting one forced an unprecedented medical evacuation flight home in mid-January.

NASA has said it is committed to keeping the space station operating until the end of 2030.