{"id":175,"date":"2026-02-14T22:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T22:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8881\/2026\/02\/14\/astronauts-arrive-at-iss-for-8-month-mission-after-medical-emergency-forced-early-evacuation\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T22:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T22:27:14","slug":"astronauts-arrive-at-iss-for-8-month-mission-after-medical-emergency-forced-early-evacuation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flamenet.io\/2026\/02\/14\/astronauts-arrive-at-iss-for-8-month-mission-after-medical-emergency-forced-early-evacuation\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronauts arrive at ISS for 8-month mission after medical emergency forced early evacuation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Four new astronauts arrived at the International Space Station Saturday, bringing the lab back up to full capacity after several of their colleagues were forced to leave early<\/a> last month due to a medical issue.<\/p>\n

The U.S., French and Russian astronauts and cosmonaut launched from Cape Canaveral in a SpaceX rocket<\/a> Friday for the approximately 34-hour journey.<\/p>\n

“That was quite the ride,” NASA Commander Jessica Meir said immediately after the launch, according to BBC News. “We have left the Earth, but the Earth has not left us.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The launch had previously been delayed twice due to weather concerns.<\/p>\n

NASA ASTRONAUT WHO WAS STUCK IN SPACE RETIRES AFTER 27-YEAR CAREER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Joining Meir for the next eight to nine months on the Space Station are NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, France\u2019s Sophie Adenot and Russia\u2019s Andrei Fedyaev.<\/p>\n

Meir, a marine biologist, and Fedyaev, a former military pilot, have both been to the ISS previously. Meir was also part of the first all-female spacewalk in 2019.<\/p>\n

Adenot is a military helicopter pilot, and Hathaway is a captain in the U.S. Navy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SPACE EXPERIMENTS REVEAL NEW WAY TO FIGHT DRUG-RESISTANT SUPERBUGS, SCIENTISTS SAY<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Adenot is only the second French woman in space.<\/p>\n

“The spacecraft will take about 34 hours to autonomously dock with the space station\u2019s Harmony module at\u202f3:15 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 14, while traveling 17,000 mph in Earth orbit,” NASA said after Friday\u2019s launch.<\/p>\n

“What an absolutely wonderful start to the day,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman<\/a> said following the launch. “This mission has shown in many ways what it means to be mission-focused at NASA.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In the last couple of weeks, we brought Crew-11 home<\/a> early, we pulled forward Crew-12 to the launch date today, all while simultaneously making preparations for the Artemis 2 mission, which its next window will open up in early March,” he added.<\/p>\n

“The flight is the 12th crew rotation with SpaceX to the orbiting laboratory as part of NASA\u2019s Commercial Crew Program. Crew-12 will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future exploration missions to the Moon and Mars<\/a>, as well as benefit people on Earth,” according to NASA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NASA said the capsule’s hatch opened at 4:14 p.m. CT after it docked at the space station.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We are so excited to be here and get to work,” Meir said after the crew arrived on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adenot added, “The first time we looked at the Earth was mindblowing. \u2026 We saw no lines, no borders.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before Saturday\u2019s crew arrived, just one American<\/a> and two Russians remained at the space station, keeping it running.<\/p>\n

January\u2019s medical evacuation was the first <\/a>in 65 years after NASA said a crew member experienced a serious health issue. The space agency has not revealed the nature of the medical condition or the name of the astronaut, citing medical privacy.<\/p>\n

The astronaut with the medical emergency and the three other crew members who had launched with them returned to Earth more than a month early after the decision was made to bring them home.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four new astronauts arrived at the International Space Station Saturday, bringing the lab back up to full capacity after several of their colleagues were forced… [more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flamenet.io\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flamenet.io\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flamenet.io\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flamenet.io\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flamenet.io\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flamenet.io\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flamenet.io\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flamenet.io\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flamenet.io\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}