Crew complete again: Crew-12 arrived at the ISS
After an evacuation in January, only three astronauts remained on the ISS. Over the weekend, four more arrived.
(Image: NASA)
The crew of the International Space Station is complete again: the Crew-12 arrived at the ISS with a SpaceX spacecraft over the weekend. Previously, the US space agency NASA had, for the first time in the history of the space station, brought a crew back early for medical reasons, after which only three people remained to hold the fort at humanity's outpost. NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, her compatriot Jack Hathaway, Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, and French ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot had launched on Friday; they are now expected to live and research on the ISS for about eight months.
Continuously occupied for 25 years
"SpaceX Crew 11" – consisting of Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke from NASA, Kimiya Yui from the Japanese space agency JAXA, and Oleg Platonov from Russia – had to suddenly leave the ISS in mid-January. The reason was a medical problem with one of the four; further details were not disclosed and have not become public since then. Consequently, only the two Russians Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikaev, along with the American Christopher Williams, remained on board the space station. Russia and the USA have agreed to always send their astronauts back and forth on each other's spacecraft, so that no nation is left alone on the ISS in such a case.
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Before Crew-12 could launch to the ISS, an anomaly during a Falcon 9 launch had to be investigated, but this was completed in time. They were actually supposed to launch to the International Space Station on Wednesday, but the weather thwarted those plans. On Friday, the time had come, and on Saturday their spacecraft docked with the ISS. Interested parties could follow this live with NASA. Astronauts have been living and researching continuously on board the ISS for more than 25 years.
(mho)
