NASA and SpaceX move up launch of Crew-12 astronauts to Feb. 11 as relief crew after ISS medical evacuation

NASA has announced an earlier-than-expected target date to launch the next astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

The agency is now targeting Feb. 11 for liftoff of the SpaceX Crew-12 mission, which will fly four astronauts to join the skeleton crew presently operating the orbital lab. A scant three are currently covering the maintenance and science investigations aboard the ISS, left behind on Jan. 14 by the early departure of Crew-11 on the station's first-ever medical evacuation.

The Crew-12 astronauts were already in line to take the Crew-11 quartet's place but had originally been scheduled to overlap with them before their return to Earth. SpaceX and NASA had originally targeted Feb. 15 for Crew-12's launch but managed to get the mission's Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket ready ahead of schedule.

Crew-12 includes NASA astronauts Jessica Meir (the mission's commander) and Jack Hathaway (pilot) and mission specialists Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. Fedyaev was a relatively late replacement for cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, who was pulled off Crew-12 in early December, possibly for violating U.S. national security regulations.

The quartet will fly the Crew Dragon capsule "Grace" to the ISS for a longer-than-normal assignment, lasting nine months instead of the typical six.

It will be the second spaceflight for Meir and Fedyaev, and Fedyaev's second long-duration mission. Hathaway and Adenot are both spaceflight rookies headed to orbit for the first time.

The launch window for Crew-12 opens on Feb. 11 at 6:00 a.m. EST (1100 GMT), with liftoff scheduled from Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The Crew-12 astronauts will join NASA's Chris Williams and cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev as a part of ISS Expedition 74, which will eventually transition to Expedition 75 before the end of Crew-12's rotation.

NASA pegs the Feb. 11 target as the mission's earliest possible launch date and has designated backup dates in the event of a delay. If Crew-12 doesn't manage to get off the ground Feb. 11, there are opportunities on Feb. 12 and Feb. 13, at 5:38 a.m. and 5:15 a.m. EST (1038 and 1015 GMT), respectively.