Liftoff of Crew-12 from SLC-40

Early this morning SpaceX launched four astronauts atop the Falcon 9 rocket to the ISS. The Dragon spacecraft supporting this mission previously flew the Crew-4, Ax-2, Ax-3, and Crew-9 missions to and from the space station. Falcon 9 lifted off from SLC-40 at 5:15am, gracefully rising into the chilly Florida sky with the Crew Dragon C212-5 Freedom. The four astronauts on this mission are Commander Jessica Meir, Pilot Jack Hathaway, and Mission Specialist Sophie Adenot from ESA, and Mission Specialist Andrey Fedaev from Roscosmos. This will bring the ISS back up to a full crew complement after the urgent medical evacuation of Crew-11.

Their planned duration is 9-months, during which they will perform “new research to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and to benefit humanity on Earth” according to SpaceX. Dragon is scheduled to dock with the orbital laboratory at approximately 3:15pm EST on February 14th.

After launch, B1011-2 performed a flip maneuver and boost back burn, landing at SpaceX’s new pad, Landing Zone 40, adjacent to the launch site. The Space Force recently introduced a new regulation that all landing zones are to be adjacent to their launch pads in order to reduce the interference with other pad operations. With multiple new rocket companies coming online in the next couple years launches are to become even more frequent on the Space Coast.

The Launch Heaven Team was onsite at NASA to document this launch from up close, and other various locations in Brevard County, from far away. We’re proud to be able to capture professional quality images and video, to share our passion for spaceflight, and we wish the Crew-12 astronauts Godspeed.