SpaceX and NASA recently delayed the launch of the next crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS) due to unfavorable weather conditions in the ascent corridor. After pushing it from Wednesday to Thursday, they’ve now pushed it again, to Friday, due to ongoing weather concerns.
Read on for full details on how to watch NASA’s Crew-12 launch — the first astronaut launch since Crew-11 flew to the ISS in August last year.
The liftoff will take place from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev aboard a Crew Dragon capsule, which previously flew the Crew-4, Ax-2, Ax-3, and Crew-9 missions to and from the space station.
It will be the second flight for the first-stage booster, which launched a batch of Starlink internet satellites on its maiden flight.
Around eight minutes after stage separation, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Landing Zone 40 (LZ-40) at Cape Canaveral. Bringing home the booster in this way allows SpaceX to reuse its boosters multiple times, helping to reduce spaceflight costs.
“During their time on the orbiting laboratory, the crew will conduct new research to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and to benefit humanity on Earth,” SpaceX said in a post on its website.
SpaceX is aiming to launch Crew-12 to orbit at 5:15 a.m. ET on Friday, February 13.
A livestream will begin on SpaceX’s website and X account about one hour before liftoff. NASA will show the same stream on its website. You can also watch it via the video player at the top of this page.
The broadcast will feature the launch from multiple angles, together with communications between the crew and Mission Control during the early part of the flight. You’ll also get to see the first-stage booster land back at base.
Of course, it’s possible that a technical issue or inclement weather could disrupt the schedule. We’ll be sure to update here if another delay occurs, or you can check SpaceX’s account on X for the very latest information.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.