A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, sending an international crew of four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Dragon spacecraft as part of NASA’s Crew-11 mission.
The crew — NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov — lifted off at 11:43 a.m. local time (1543 GMT) following a one-day delay due to bad weather. They are expected to dock with the ISS at around 3 a.m. (0700 GMT) on Saturday after a 15-hour flight.
The mission, originally planned for a six-month rotation, may be extended to eight months to better synchronise schedules between NASA and Roscosmos, NASA said. The decision will depend on the spacecraft’s performance while docked to the station.
This marks the eleventh crew rotation flight under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and comes amid heightened geopolitical tensions, but continued cooperation aboard the ISS. Despite Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and its pivot away from U.S.-led lunar missions, both nations remain partners in space station operations.
The Crew-11 astronauts will join seven others currently on the ISS, briefly increasing the station’s population to 11. Once the new crew settles in, NASA’s Crew-10 astronauts will return to Earth following a handover period.
While in orbit, the Crew-11 team will carry out a wide range of scientific experiments, including research on plant biology, bacterial resistance, stem cell growth, and vision protection strategies. The mission is also expected to simulate conditions relevant to future Moon and Mars expeditions.
The launch follows a rare face-to-face meeting in Florida between acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy and Roscosmos head Dmitry Bakanov — their first since 2018. According to Roscosmos, discussions included continued ISS cooperation and lunar exploration, though no new joint projects were announced.
Russia is currently aligned with China on lunar missions, having withdrawn from NASA’s Artemis programme following its isolation from Western space initiatives due to the Ukraine conflict.
Despite diverging goals on future Moon projects, space station collaboration remains one of the last functioning areas of U.S.-Russia cooperation, with Crew-11 highlighting the ongoing partnership — at least in orbit.
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Countries including Britain, Canada, Germany and others on Wednesday condemned the Israeli security cabinet's approval of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying they violated international law and risked fuelling instability.
A majority of Russians expect the war in Ukraine to end in 2026, state pollster VTsIOM said on Wednesday, in a sign that the Kremlin could be testing public reaction to a possible peace settlement as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict intensify.
Georgia's Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili has accused Brussels of using visa policy as a political weapon rather than a technical instrument.
The White House has instructed U.S. military forces to concentrate largely on enforcing a “quarantine” on Venezuelan oil exports for at least the next two months, a U.S. official told Reuters, signalling that Washington is prioritising economic pressure over direct military action against Caracas.
Thailand and Cambodia both reported fresh clashes on Wednesday, as the two sides prepared to hold military talks aimed at easing tensions along their shared border.
Libya’s chief of staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, has died in a plane crash shortly after departing Türkiye’s capital, Ankara, the prime minister of Libya’s UN-recognised government has said.
The U.S. State Department has authorised a potential Foreign Military Sale of Advanced Medium Range Air‑to‑Air Missiles (AMRAAM) to Denmark, aimed at bolstering the Scandinavian nation’s air defence capabilities, the Pentagon’s Defence Security Cooperation Agency said on Monday.
Afghanistan and Iran have signed an implementation plan to strengthen regulation of food, medicine, and health products based on a 2023 cooperation agreement.
Negotiations conducted with the United States and European nations, aimed at ending the nearly four-year war with Russia, were "very close to a real result," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.
China’s core artificial intelligence (AI) industry is projected to surpass 1.2 trillion yuan in 2025 (about $170 billion), up from more than 900 billion yuan in 2024, according to a new industry assessment.
Time Magazine has chosen the creators behind artificial intelligence as its 2025 Person of the Year, highlighting the technology’s sweeping impact on global business, politics and daily life.
Children are forming new patterns of trust and attachment with artificial intelligence (AI) companions, entering a world where digital partners shape their play, their confidence and the conversations they no longer share with adults.
The International Robot Exhibition (IREX) opened in Tokyo on 3 December, bringing together visitors to explore robotics applications for industry, healthcare, logistics, and everyday life.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including prominent Republican China hawk Tom Cotton, introduced the SAFE CHIPS Act on Thursday, aiming to prevent the Trump administration from easing restrictions on China’s access to advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips for a period of 2.5 years.
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