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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Leaders of countries from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have agreed to hold coordinated population censuses around 2030. They took the decision at the CIS Council of Heads of State meeting in Awaza, Turkmenistan on Friday, media reported.
The explosion at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday afternoon killed at least 12 people and injured a further 309, according to Saudi Arabia’s Civil Aviation Authority. The airport remains closed until further notice.
South African judge Navanethem “Navi” Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday “for her efforts to promote peace and international law,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
The U.S. has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday (9 October) escalating tensions with European allies and potentially targeting companies that provide services to the tribunal. The move came hours after former ICC judge Navi Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed surprise after Donald Trump mediated the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement in 2025, the U.S. President said at a rally in New York state on Friday.
Indian police detained more than 2,000 protesters in Delhi on Saturday as authorities blocked a planned demonstration calling for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over disputed changes to voter lists.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed surprise after Donald Trump mediated the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement in 2025, the U.S. President said at a rally in New York state on Friday.
The United Nations has condemned a sharp rise in attacks on civilians in Ukraine, reporting that more than 100 people were killed and at least 429 injured in a single week as Russian strikes hit residential areas, passenger buses and critical infrastructure.
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