NASA and its partners will discuss the upcoming crew rotation to the International Space Station during two news conferences Friday, Jan. 30, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
At 11 a.m. EST, mission leadership will discuss final launch and mission preparations in a news conference that will stream on the agency’s YouTube channel.
Next, the crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission will participate in a virtual news conference from the NASA Johnson Crew Quarters at 1 p.m., also on the agency’s YouTube channel. Separate streams for each event will be available on that page. This is the final media opportunity with Crew-12 before traveling to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch.
Crew-12 will carry NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fadeyev to the orbiting laboratory. The crew will launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft aboard the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The agency is working with SpaceX and its international partners to review options for moving Crew-12’s launch beyond its original target date of Sunday, Feb. 15.
United States-based media interested in attending in person should contact the NASA Johnson Newsroom at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov before 5 pm CST on Thursday, January 29.
Media wishing to join the news conference by phone must contact the Johnson newsroom by 9:45 a.m. the day of the event. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
The briefing participants are as follows (all time Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
11 am: Mission Overview News Conference
- Ken Bowersox, Associate Administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
- Steve Stich, Manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA Kennedy
- Dana Weigel, Manager, International Space Station Program, NASA Johnson
- Andreas Mogensen, Human Exploration Group Leader, ESA
- SpaceX representative
1 pm: Crew news conference
- Jessica Meyer, Crew-12 Commander, NASA
- Jack Hathaway, Crew-12 Pilot, NASA
- Sophie Adenot, Crew-12 Mission Specialist, ESA
- Andrey Fadeyev, Crew-12 mission specialist, Roscosmos
This will be the second flight to the space station for Mir, who was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2013. The native of Caribou, Maine 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. In her first space flight, Meyer 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, a total of 21 hours and 44 minutes outside the station. Since then, he has served in a variety of roles, including assistant to the chief astronaut for commercial crew (SpaceX), deputy for the Flight Integration Division, and assistant to the chief astronaut for human landing systems.
A commander in the United States Navy, Hathaway was selected as part of the 2021 astronaut candidate class. This will be Hathway’s first space flight. The native of South Windsor, Connecticut holds bachelor’s degrees in physics and history from the U.S. 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 Empire Test Pilot School, Fixed Wing Class 70, in 2011. At the time of his selection, Hathaway was deployed to the USS Truman as the prospective executive officer of Strike Fighter Squadron 81. He has accumulated over 2,500 flight hours in 30 different aircraft, including over 500 carrier arrested landings and 39 combat missions.
The Crew-12 mission will be Adenot’s first space flight. Prior to his selection as an ESA astronaut in 2022, Adenot earned a degree in engineering with a specialization in spacecraft and aircraft flight dynamics from ISAE-Supero in Toulouse, France. He also earned a master’s degree in human factors engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. After earning her master’s degree, she became a helicopter cockpit design engineer at Airbus Helicopters and later worked 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 Formation Flight Leader and Mission Captain from 2012 to 2017. Between 2019 and 2022, Adenaut worked as a helicopter experimental test pilot. Cazaux Flight Test Center with DGA (Direction General de l’Armement – French defense procurement agency). He has spent over 3,000 hours flying 22 different helicopters.
This will be Fedeyev’s second long-term stay in the orbiting laboratory. He graduated from the Krasnodar Military Aviation Institute in 2004 with a specialization in aircraft operations and air traffic organization and qualified as a pilot engineer. Prior to his selection as an astronaut, he served as deputy commander of the Ilyushin-38 aircraft unit in the Kamchatka region, logging over 600 flight hours and achieving the rank of second-class military pilot. Fadeyev 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 flew to the space station as a mission specialist during NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission, and spent 186 days in orbit as the Expedition 69 flight engineer. For his achievements, Fedeyev was awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation and received the Yuri Gagarin Medal.
For more information about the mission visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
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Joshua Finch / Jimmy 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
