\n<\/p>\n
Four fresh astronauts are on their way to the International Space Station (ISS). On Friday at 5:15 A.M. EST, Crew-12 launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., onboard a spacecraft on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, kick-starting a day-long journey to orbit.<\/p>\n
Crew-12 is composed of NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. The quartet are set to dock at the station at approximately 3:15 P.M. EST on Saturday, February 14.<\/p>\n
While in space, Crew-12 will perform a series of science experiments, including investigating how spaceflight and microgravity changes blood flow and whether vitamin B supplements can help help protect astronauts\u2019 eyes from spaceflight-related changes. And they\u2019ll perform some simulated moon landings. If all goes to plan, Crew-12 will also be part of a call with NASA\u2019s Artemis II crew as those four astronauts wing their way around the moon, said Jared Isaacman, NASA\u2019s administrator, at a press conference on Friday.<\/p>\n
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n
Crew-12 replaces Crew-11\u2014but unlike typical station handovers, the Crew-11 astronauts were evacuated from the ISS in January weeks ahead of their planned return. That decision came after one of the four members of that mission experienced an unknown medical issue\u2014NASA has not revealed which astronaut encountered the problem.<\/p>\n
Since Crew-11\u2019s unprecedented early departure, the ISS has been staffed by just three people: one NASA astronaut, Chris Williams, and two cosmonauts, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, the station commander, and Sergei Mikaev.<\/p>\n
NASA has said no changes were made to Meir, Hathaway, Adenot and Fedyaev\u2019s preparation or training as a result of what happened to Crew-11.<\/p>\n
If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Four fresh astronauts are on their way to the International Space Station (ISS). On Friday at 5:15 A.M. EST, Crew-12 launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., onboard a spacecraft on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, kick-starting a day-long journey to orbit. Crew-12 is composed of NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[2724,23105,131,3972,2534,1372,3331,23033],"class_list":{"0":"post-44523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-astronauts","9":"tag-crew12","10":"tag-day","11":"tag-gift","12":"tag-iss","13":"tag-launches","14":"tag-nasa","15":"tag-valentines"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}