NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 Heads Home After 237-Day Mission That Began at Cape Canaveral

Four astronauts who launched from Cape Canaveral in February were on their way home Thursday aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft Freedom, with splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off California scheduled for about 11:34 a.m. EDT on Oct. 8. NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 mission undocked from the International Space Station at 8:05 a.m. EDT Wednesday, and the capsule was set to fire its engines for a deorbit burn at about 10:46 a.m. EDT Thursday. As of this report's publication, NASA had not yet confirmed the splashdown; this article will be updated when it does.

Splashdown would close a 237-day mission, according to NASA, for commander Jessica Meir and pilot Jack Hathaway of NASA, mission specialist Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency and mission specialist Andrey Fedyaev of Russia's Roscosmos. Their flight began with a predawn Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Feb. 13, and their return comes as the Space Coast prepares for its next station mission, a cargo Dragon targeted for Tuesday morning.

The ride home

Dragon separated autonomously from the space-facing port of the station's Harmony module, NASA said, after the crew spent Tuesday finishing packing the capsule with personal items, cargo and scientific samples. Before reentry, the crew prepared drink bags with salt tablets to load up on fluids, which helps the body readjust to gravity. NASA scheduled live return coverage to begin at 10:20 a.m. EDT Thursday, ahead of a deorbit burn at about 10:46 a.m. and splashdown at about 11:34 a.m. Recovery teams aboard the SpaceX vessel MV Shannon were assigned to retrieve the capsule.

The Crew-12 departure leaves seven people aboard the station.

A launch that came early

Crew-12's mission was shaped from the start by events in orbit. Its predecessor, Crew-11, returned to Earth early on Jan. 15, 2026, because of a medical issue involving one crew member, leaving the station short-staffed. NASA and SpaceX looked for ways to move Crew-12 up. After a weather delay and another slip, Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at 5:15 a.m. EST on Feb. 13, and Dragon docked to Harmony's space-facing port the next day, restoring the station to a full crew of seven. The flight was also the first to use the new Falcon 9 booster landing site at the Cape, Landing Zone 40.

Meir, the commander, was making her second spaceflight; Hathaway was on his first. Adenot, a French astronaut from ESA's 2022 class, became the first career astronaut from that class to fly, and carried out nearly 200 experiments during a European segment named Epsilon, including tests of a development version of the EuroSuit intravehicular suit on May 29, June 11 and July 20. Fedyaev, flying for the second time, became the first Russian to fly twice on a Crew Dragon after replacing cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev on the crew in December 2025.

The June safe-haven scare

The mission's most tense moment came June 5, when NASA directed five of the seven people aboard the station, including all four Crew-12 members and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, to wait inside the docked Freedom capsule as a precaution. Two cosmonauts were working on small air leaks in a compartment at the rear of the Russian Zvezda module, a transfer tunnel that has leaked since 2019. Reuters, citing an unnamed NASA official, reported that week that the leak rate had climbed from about one pound of air a day to about two. NASA was concerned that a more extensive repair approach planned by Roscosmos could add risk to surrounding structure. Repairs were paused, a decision NASA said it "strongly supported," and the crew returned to normal operations. Roscosmos said the situation did not threaten the crew or station systems.

Mission timeline

Key dates from Crew-12's mission, according to NASA and published mission records:

Handoff to Crew-13

Crew-12 handed the station's U.S. segment to Crew-13, which launched from Space Launch Complex 40 on Oct. 1 aboard the Dragon Grace and reached the station in under eight hours, docking to Harmony's forward port at 7 p.m. EDT the same day. That mission had been delayed from Sept. 12 after a propellant oxidizer leak was found in the capsule. Crew-13 includes NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, who are scheduled to stay until spring 2027.

They join NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov, the station commander, and Anna Kikina, who arrived July 14 aboard a Soyuz. With Crew-12 gone, Expedition 75 has seven members, and the station is hosting the Crew-13 Dragon, Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL cargo craft, the Soyuz MS-29 and two Russian Progress resupply ships.

Why it matters for Florida

Every U.S. crew rotation to the station since 2020 has begun on Florida's Space Coast, and Crew-12 and Crew-13 both launched from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the pad SpaceX has adapted for crew flights. The rotations and resupply runs keep a steady stream of launches, workers and visitors flowing through Brevard County, and the next one is days away.

What's next

SpaceX is targeting 6:33 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 13, for the launch of its 35th Commercial Resupply Services mission for NASA, CRS-35, on a Falcon 9 from Space Launch Complex 40, with a backup opportunity at 6:08 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, according to SpaceX. The cargo Dragon, making its fourth flight after the CRS-26, CRS-29 and CRS-33 missions, is planned to dock to Harmony's space-facing port, the spot Freedom just vacated, at about 11 a.m. Oct. 15 after a roughly 52-hour trip. Launch times can shift with weather and technical checks.