NASA Delays Crew-12 Launch to ISS Due to Weather Concerns

WASHINGTON: (Web Desk) – NASA has postponed the launch of four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), now targeting Friday, February 13, following a review of forecasted weather conditions, the US space agency announced Tuesday. The mission is scheduled to lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 5:15 a.m. local time (1015 GMT).

“Mission teams completed a weather review Tuesday morning and have waived off the Thursday, Feb. 12, launch opportunity due to forecast weather conditions along Crew-12’s flight path,” NASA said in a statement. While Florida’s launch site is experiencing favorable conditions, higher winds along the East Coast could pose challenges for potential emergency procedures, such as an early splashdown.

If the launch proceeds as planned on Friday, the astronauts are expected to arrive at the ISS by approximately 3:15 p.m. on Saturday.

Crew-12 includes Americans Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. They are currently in quarantine at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, awaiting lift-off.

NASA’s Crew-12 Astronauts Set to Re-Staff ISS

The new crew will replace Crew-11, which returned to Earth in January, a month earlier than planned, marking the first-ever medical evacuation from the space station. Since then, the ISS — a scientific laboratory orbiting 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth — has been staffed by a skeleton crew of three.

Continuously inhabited for the last 25 years, the aging ISS is scheduled for de-orbiting and a controlled crash into a remote Pacific Ocean location in 2030.