NPR News · Feb 14, 2026 · Collected from RSS
The crew will spend the next eight months conducting experiments to prepare for human exploration beyond Earth's orbit.
In this image from video provided by NASA, a SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying Americans Meir and Jack Hathaway, France's Sophie Adenot and Russia's Andrei Fedyaev, approaches the International Space Station for docking on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. NASA/AP hide caption toggle caption NASA/AP The four members of NASA'S SpaceX Crew-12 mission docked at the International Space Station on Saturday afternoon. The crew blasted off before dawn on Friday morning from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The Crew-12 mission includes two NASA astronauts, Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. During their eight-month mission, the crew will conduct scientific research to prepare for human exploration beyond earth's orbit and enhance food production in space. "With Crew-12 safely on orbit, America and our international partners once again demonstrated the professionalism, preparation, and teamwork required for human spaceflight," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement. The mission replaces the crew from NASA's Crew-11 mission, which departed the ISS a month ahead of schedule in January due to a medical evacuation of one of the crew members. Since then, the space station has been operating with a reduced staff of three people — well below it's typical seven-person staff. Isaacman also said that NASA is simultaneously making preparations for the 10-day Artemis II mission, which would send a crew of four astronauts around the moon. It's the first crewed mission to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972 and is slated to take off as soon as March.