NASA Sets Briefings for SpaceX Crew-12 Mission to Space Station
NASA and its partners will discuss the upcoming crew rotation to the International Space Station during two news conferences on Friday, Jan. 30, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
At 11:00 a.m. EST, mission leaders will discuss the final launch and mission preparations in a press conference that will be broadcast on the agency’s YouTube channel.
Next, the crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission will participate in a virtual press conference from NASA Johnson’s crew quarters at 1 p.m., also on the agency’s YouTube channel. Individual streams for each of the events will be available on this page. This is the final media opportunity with Crew-12 before it travels to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch.
Crew 12 will transport NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev to the orbiting laboratory. The crew will blast off aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral space station in Florida. The agency is working with SpaceX and its international partners to review options to advance the launch of Crew-12 from its original target date of Sunday, February 15.
U.S.-based media wishing to attend in person should contact NASA’s Johnson newsroom no later than 5 p.m. CST on Thursday, January 29 at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov.
Media wishing to participate in press conferences by telephone should contact the Johnson press room by 9:45 a.m. on the day of the event. A copy of NASA’s Media Accreditation Policy is available online.
Briefing participants are as follows (Eastern times and subject to change based on real-time operations):
11:00 a.m.: Press conference on the presentation of the mission
- Ken Bowersox, Associate Administrator, NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate
- Steve Stich, Commercial Crew Program Manager, NASA Kennedy
- Dana Weigel, International Space Station Program Manager, NASA Johnson
- Andreas Mogensen, head of the Human Exploration Group, ESA
- SpaceX Representative
1:00 p.m.: Crew press conference
- Jessica Meir, Crew-12 Commander, NASA
- Jack Hathaway, Crew-12 pilot, NASA
- Sophie Adenot, Crew-12 mission specialist, ESA
- Andrey Fedyaev, Crew-12 mission specialist, Roscosmos
This will be the second flight to the space station for Meir, who was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013. The Caribou, Maine, native earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Brown University, a master’s degree in space studies from the International Space University and a doctorate in marine biology from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. During her first spaceflight, Meir spent 205 days as a flight engineer during Expedition 61/62, and she completed the first three all-female spacewalks with fellow NASA astronaut Christina Koch, totaling 21 hours and 44 minutes outside the station. Since then, she has held a variety of positions, including Assistant to the Chief Astronaut for Commercial Crew (SpaceX), Assistant to the Flight Integration Division, and Assistant to the Chief Astronaut for the Human Landing System.
A U.S. Navy commander, Hathaway was selected as part of the 2021 class of astronaut candidates. This will be Hathaway’s first spaceflight. The South Windsor, Conn. native holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and history from the United States Naval Academy and a master’s degree in flight dynamics from Cranfield University and a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College, respectively. Hathaway also graduated from the Empire Test Pilot’s School, Fixed-Wing Class 70 in 2011. At the time of his selection, Hathaway was deployed aboard the USS Truman, serving as the future executive officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 81. He has accumulated more than 2,500 flight hours on 30 different aircraft, including more than 500 carrier arrested landings and 39 combat missions.
The Crew-12 mission will be Adenot’s first spaceflight. Prior to his selection as an ESA astronaut in 2022, Adenot earned an engineering degree from ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse, France, specializing in the flight dynamics of spacecraft and aircraft. She also earned a master’s degree in human factors engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. After obtaining her master’s degree, she became a helicopter cockpit design engineer at Airbus Helicopters and then served as a search and rescue pilot at Cazaux air base from 2008 to 2012. She then joined the High Authority transport squadron in Villacoublay, France, and served as a training flight leader and mission captain from 2012 to 2017. Between 2019 and 2022, Adenot worked as an experimental helicopter test pilot at the Cazaux Flight Test Center. with the DGA (Directorate General of Armaments). She has accumulated more than 3,000 flight hours on 22 different helicopters.
This will be Fedyaev’s second long-term stay aboard the orbiting laboratory. He graduated from the Krasnodar Military Aviation Institute in 2004, specializing in aviation operations and air traffic organization, and obtained pilot engineer qualifications. Before being selected as a cosmonaut, he served as deputy commander of an Ilyushin-38 air unit in the Kamchatka region, totaling more than 600 flight hours and reaching the rank of military pilot second class. Fedyaev was selected for the Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Center Cosmonaut Corps in 2012 and has served as a test cosmonaut since 2014. In 2023, he traveled to the space station as a mission specialist on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission, spending 186 days in orbit, as the flight engineer of Expedition 69. For his achievements, Fedyaev was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation and the Yuri Gagarin medal.
For more information about the mission, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
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Joshua Finch/Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones / Joseph Zakrzewski
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov / joseph.a.zakrzewski@nasa.gov
