The residents of the International Space Station received a special Valentine’s Day treat.
“With that gentle contact, we have bridged the legacy of humankind’s continuous presence in space. It has been more than 25 years at this very site,” radioed Jessica Meir, Crew-12 commander. “The International Space Station is more than a structure, it is a promise kept. Decades in the making, built by nations, sustained by trust and partnerships, and powered by science, innovation and curiosity.”
“As we look back at Earth through these windows, we are reminded that cooperation is not just possible, it is essential. Up here there are no borders and hope is universal,” she said.
“After docking, the crew will change out of their spacesuits and prepare cargo for offload before opening the hatch between Dragon and the space station’s Harmony module around 5 p.m. [EST],” NASA officials said in a statement.
Crew-12 launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station early Friday morning (Feb. 13), sending four astronauts toward the ISS aboard the Crew Dragon capsule “Freedom.”
Those crewmembers are NASA’s Meir and Jack Hathaway, the mission’s commander and pilot, respectively; mission specialist Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency; and mission specialist Andrey Fedyaev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
Crew-12 is the first spaceflight for Hathaway and Adenot and the second for Meir and Fedyaev. The cosmonaut was a late addition to the crew, coming aboard in early December to replace his countryman Oleg Artemyev, who was allegedly pulled for violating the U.S. law known as ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations).
The Crew-12 astronauts are expected to live and work aboard the ISS through October, making their stint a bit longer than the usual six-month crew rotation.
The quartet is joining up with three other spaceflyers on the ISS — NASA’s Chris Williams and cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev. The trio have had the orbiting lab to themselves since Jan. 15, when the four-person Crew-11 mission headed home to Earth.
Crew-11 departed a month earlier than planned due to a medical issue with one of its astronauts, leaving the ISS with a skeleton crew for longer than anticipated. (NASA has not identified the astronaut or given details about the concern.) It was the first medical evacuation in the history of the ISS, which has been staffed continuously since November 2000.
Seven has been the nominal crew size on the ISS since 2020. The original baseline was three; that was doubled to six in 2009.
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