A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched early on Friday, 13 February, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying four astronauts and cosmonauts on an eight-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The Crew-12 team includes two Americans, a French astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut.
The 25-storey rocket, topped with the autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule Freedom, lifted off at 10:15 GMT, its nine Merlin engines producing a dramatic display of fire and vapour.
The crew is expected to dock with the ISS on Saturday after a 34-hour flight, where they will join the station’s current occupants: NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev.
Crew-12 is led by veteran NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, who is returning for her second mission following a historic all-female spacewalk in 2019.
Joining her are rookie astronaut Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot of France and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, who is embarking on his second mission to the ISS.
During their time aboard the station, the team will conduct scientific, medical and technical research. This will include studies on pneumonia-causing bacteria, as well as experiments involving plants and nitrogen-fixing microbes aimed at supporting future space agriculture.
Their arrival follows the early departure of four Crew-11 members due to a medical evacuation in mid-January.
The ISS, which spans the length of an American football field, is operated by a US-Russian-led consortium that includes Canada, Japan and 11 European nations. It has been continuously inhabited for more than 25 years.
NASA has confirmed its commitment to maintaining the station until at least 2030, continuing a decades-long multinational effort that began after the Cold War.
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Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has acquired his artificial intelligence firm xAI, as the billionaire moves to bring more of his technology businesses under one structure.
A SpaceX capsule carrying a four-member crew home from orbit in an emergency return to earth necessitated by an undisclosed serious medical condition afflicting one of the astronauts splashed down safely early on Thursday (15 January) in the Pacific Ocean off California.
SpaceX will gradually lower 4,400 Starlink satellites this year to improve space safety.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become the world’s richest individual, with a net worth of US$749 billion, after the Delaware Supreme Court reinstated $139 billion in stock options that were voided last year, according to Forbes’ billionaires index.
Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is a hardline cleric with strong backing from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. His rise signals continuity in Tehran's anti-Western policies.
Global oil prices surpassed $119 a barrel on Monday (9 March, 2026), an almost four year high, as the Middle East conflict rumbled on.
Trump says the United States "don’t need people that join wars after we’ve already won," targeting his criticism at UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Israel continues to fire missles at strategic sites in Iran and Gulf regions report more strikes from Iran.
China has urged Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their dispute through dialogue after Chinese envoy Yue Xiaoyong met Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, as fighting between the two neighbours entered its eleventh day.
Iran named Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father Ali Khamenei as supreme leader on Monday (9 March), signaling that hardliners remain firmly in charge, as the week-old U.S.-Israeli war with Iran pushed oil above $100 a barrel.
U.S. President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke by phone on Sunday as tensions between Washington and Westminster deepened over the conflict involving Iran. The call came less than a day after Trump criticised Britain’s response to U.S. strikes on Iranian targets.
Norwegian police are searching for a suspect after an explosion at the U.S. embassy in Oslo on 8 March caused minor damage but no injuries, in what authorities say may have been a deliberate attack linked to the Middle East crisis.
An explosion damaged a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liège early on Monday (9 March) in what authorities said was an antisemitic attack that caused damage but no injuries.
The Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers will meet on Monday to discuss a global rise in oil prices and a joint release of oil from emergency reserves coordinated by the International Energy Agency, the Financial Times reports.
Start your day informed with AnewZ Morning Brief. Here are the top news stories for the 9th of March, covering the latest developments you need to know.
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