International Team Lifts off From Florida for Months-Long Research Mission

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission successfully launched on Friday, August 1, at 11:43 am EDT from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A, sending four astronauts on a months-long scientific expedition aboard the International Space Station.

Riding aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the Crew Dragon spacecraft carried NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov into orbit. The crew was expected to dock with the station early the next morning, around 3 am EDT, at the space-facing port of the Harmony module. NASA’s coverage of the docking, hatch opening, and welcome ceremony began in the early hours of August 2.

Once aboard, the four new arrivals briefly expanded the station’s population to 11. They join NASA astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, and Jonny Kim; JAXA’s Takuya Onishi; and Roscosmos cosmonauts Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky. Crew-10, the outgoing team, will remain on station for a short handover period before returning to Earth, weather permitting.

During their mission, Crew-11 will conduct a wide range of research in microgravity. Experiments include simulating lunar landings, studying bacterial response to viruses, growing human stem cells in space, and analyzing how spaceflight affects astronauts' vision and nutrition. The work supports NASA’s long-term goals for exploration beyond low Earth orbit, including missions to the Moon and eventually Mars.

As always, SpaceX will monitor the spacecraft’s automated systems from its mission control center in Hawthorne, California, while NASA’s flight controllers oversee space station operations from Houston.

Crew-11 is the latest mission under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program: a public-private effort designed to provide routine, reliable access to space. While the rhetoric may point toward the Moon and Mars, for now, the science starts in low Earth orbit.

“The Commercial Crew Program and Artemis missions prove what American ingenuity, and cutting-edge American manufacturing can achieve,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “We’re going to the Moon…to stay! After that, we go to Mars! Welcome to the Golden Age of exploration!”

FMI: www.nasa.gov