A SpaceX capsule is set to ferry four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in a mission designed to restore the orbiting laboratory to full operational staffing after nearly a month of functioning with a reduced crew, as the flight known as Crew-12 is scheduled to lift off no earlier than 5:15 a.m. ET Friday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, marking a critical step in stabilizing operations aboard the football field–size station that has been operating below its preferred staffing threshold since mid-January.
The Crew-12 mission comes amid efforts by NASA to address what officials have described as a temporary but significant staffing shortfall aboard the ISS, which has been inhabited by only three astronauts far fewer than the seven-person complement the agency typically considers optimal for scientific productivity and maintenance after an earlier mission was forced to cut short its stay in orbit.
NASA had sought to expedite the Crew-12 launch in response to the staffing situation, underscoring the operational strain of running the station with a skeleton crew, but the agency was compelled to forgo two potential launch opportunities on Wednesday and Thursday due to unfavorable weather conditions along the rocket’s projected flight path, demonstrating how atmospheric variables continue to shape even tightly scheduled space operations.
The urgency surrounding Crew-12 follows the premature return of the previous staffing mission, Crew-11, which was forced to make an early departure from orbit because of an undisclosed medical issue involving an unidentified crew member, prompting mission managers to prioritize a safe return to Earth and temporarily leaving the ISS understaffed.
Speaking during a news conference in January, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman emphasized the agency’s preparedness in responding to the emergency, stating, “NASA was ready. The team responded quickly and professionally, as did the teams across the agency, working closely with our commercial partners and executed a very safe return,” and adding that the affected astronaut was in stable condition, noting, “This is exactly why we train, and this is NASA at its finest.”
Crew-11’s return capsule splashed down off the coast of California, after which all four astronauts were transported to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla for medical evaluation and observation, in keeping with standard post-mission protocols. The returning crew included NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, and they later appeared at a news conference to address the mission’s conclusion.
Reflecting on the events, Fincke said, “How we handled everything all the way through, from nominal operations to this unforeseen operation, really bodes well for future exploration,” underscoring the resilience and adaptability required in human spaceflight.
On board the upcoming Crew-12 mission will be NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, forming a multinational team tasked with restoring the ISS to its full staffing level and resuming an expanded slate of research activities.
Bill Ingalls/NASA
Under ordinary circumstances, NASA prefers to conduct a direct handover between incoming and outgoing crews, a process that can temporarily increase the station’s population to as many as 11 astronauts as the arriving team acclimates to life in orbit with the assistance of their predecessors, ensuring continuity in operations and minimizing disruption to scientific experiments and maintenance schedules.
However, because Crew-11’s emergency medical departure necessitated an earlier-than-planned return, Crew-12 will not benefit from a traditional in-orbit handover, a departure from standard practice that officials have described as manageable but less than ideal.
Despite the absence of overlap in space, Meir explained that the new crew was able to debrief with the returning astronauts on the ground prior to launch preparations, saying during a February 8 news conference, “We ran into them several times and had a little bit of a debrief so they could pass along some pertinent things,” highlighting how pre-flight coordination can partially compensate for the lack of face-to-face transition aboard the station itself.
Meir also placed the current staffing arrangement in historical context, noting that before SpaceX began providing NASA with routine crew transportation services to orbit, smaller crew complements were more common and indirect handovers were standard practice. “The time of my last flight around six, seven years ago we did these indirect handovers,” she said, referring to the process of conducting a handoff with new crewmates on the ground rather than in orbit, and adding, “It was more rare to have that direct handover where the other crew stayed on board before you arrived,” a reminder that operational norms aboard the ISS have evolved alongside commercial launch capabilities.
At present, the early departure of Crew-11 has left the ISS staffed by three individuals: Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, along with NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who traveled to the orbiting laboratory under a rideshare agreement with Roscosmos, NASA’s Russian counterpart.
While NASA officials have stressed that the station remains safe and fully functional, they have routinely indicated that maintaining a robust crew presence is essential to maximizing the scientific return on investment from the ISS, which costs approximately $3 billion per year to operate and maintain, making efficient use of crew time a central priority for the agency.
Isaacman has signaled that advancing novel scientific research aboard the ISS is integral not only to current missions but also to the broader future of human spaceflight, particularly as NASA seeks to transition low-Earth orbit operations to private-sector providers.
During a Senate confirmation hearing in December, he said, “I, like a lot of space enthusiasts, dream of the day where we have multiple commercial space stations in low-Earth orbit,” while cautioning that “in order for that to be a financially viable model, we have to absolutely maximize the remaining life of the International Space Station get the highest potential science and research to the space,” framing the ISS as both a laboratory and a proving ground for emerging commercial platforms.
Kim Shiflett/NASA
Over the course of their planned roughly eight-month stay aboard the ISS, the Crew-12 astronauts are expected to undertake an array of scientific investigations aimed at deepening understanding of how spaceflight affects the human body and advancing medical and technological knowledge that could support future exploration missions.
Among the projects slated for the mission are ultrasound scans of astronauts’ blood vessels to study changes in circulation in microgravity, pharmaceutical research focused on bacteria that cause pneumonia, and a simulated lunar landing experiment designed to assess how abrupt shifts in gravity influence human physiology and cognition, efforts that collectively underscore NASA’s objective of leveraging the ISS’s remaining operational lifespan to generate data critical to both deep-space exploration and potential commercial successors in low-Earth orbit.