With NASA’s delayed Artemis II moon mission on hold, SpaceX pressed ahead with a Friday the 13th launch of four fresh crew members to the International Space Station in a mission to replace four fliers who came home early last month because of a medical issue one was having.Crew 12 commander Jessica Meir, pilot Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, strapped into a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket, blasted off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:15 a.m. EST.A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Dragon spacecraft on top launches from Space Launch Complex 40 for the Crew-12 mission at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Feb. 13, 2026. / Credit: Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty ImagesLighting up the pre-dawn sky, the Falcon 9 streaked away on a northeasterly trajectory aligned with the space station’s orbit, on course for docking Saturday around 3:15 p.m. to boost the lab’s crew from three back to a full complement of seven.AdvertisementAdvertisement”It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day,” SpaceX Launch Control radioed once the crew reached orbit.”That was quite a ride,” Meir responded.Crew 12 originally expected to take off after four other astronauts ventured to the moon and back in NASA’s Artemis II mission. But the moonshot was delayed to early March because of hydrogen fuel leaks in that crew’s huge Space Launch System rocket. That, in turn, cleared the way for NASA to move up Crew 12’s launch to Feb. 11.But high winds off shore in the Atlantic Ocean, where the Crew 12 fliers would have to splash down in an ascent emergency, then prompted NASA to stand down until Friday, when calmer seas and lower winds were predicted.AdvertisementAdvertisementWhile Crew 12 made final preparations to fly, engineers ran another test …
