These are the four members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission is manned by a international group of four astronauts who will spend 8 months in space on the ISS conducting experiments.
The members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission are ready to head off to the International Space Station after two weeks in quarantine. They were initially scheduled to depart on Wednesday 11 February, but adverse weather conditions in their flight path has delayed liftoff until at the earliest in the pre-dawn on Friday the 13th.
The space travelers will spend 8 months orbiting the Earth and while aboard the International Space Station will conduct a variety of science experiments. These will focus on better “understanding how astronauts’ bodies adapt to the low-gravity environment of space” in order to be able to “build the best strategies to keep [astronauts] safe” during long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars.
Of the four-person crew, this will be the first spaceflight for two and for the other two it will be their second long-term stay on the floating space laboratory. Here’s a look at who they are.
Meet the members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission
NASA astronaut Jessica Meir will be commanding the mission. The native of Caribou, Maine, was selected into the US space program in 2013. This will be her second trip to the International Space Station.
During Meir’s previous stay as part of Expedition 61/62, she spent 205 days aboard the ISS as a flight engineer. She also completed the first three all-women spacewalks with her NASA colleague astronaut Christina Koch, for a total of almost 22 hours outside the station.
NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway will serve as the pilot on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission. The United States Navy Commander, who accumulated over 2,500 flight hours in 30 different aircraft, was inducted into the US space program in 2021 and this will be his first spaceflight.
This will also be the first spaceflight for European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Sophie Adenot. The engineer and helicopter pilot, who has over 3,000 hours flying 22 different helicopters, was selected for the European space program in 2022 and will serve as a mission specialist.
Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will also serve as a mission specialists. The pilot engineer and test cosmonaut joined the Russian space program in 2012 and will be returning to the ISS for a second time. He earned the title ‘Hero of the Russian Federation’ and was given the Yuri Gagarin Medal after spending 186 days on the orbiting laboratory as part of Expedition 69 serving as a flight engineer.
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