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Seven Months in Space! Crew-12 Astronauts Are Finally Heading Home
Quick Summary
Four astronauts who have been living on the International Space Station since February are almost ready to come home. They have spent about seven months in space doing experiments and repairs. At the same time, four new astronauts are in quarantine and getting ready to launch to the station in early October.
What Happened?
The SpaceX Crew-12 mission launched on February 13, 2026. Since then, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev have all been living and working on the space station.
This past Wednesday, the four crewmates gathered in the station’s science lab to talk with reporters down on Earth. They talked about their favorite memories and shared how excited they are to return home.
Astronaut Jack Hathaway spoke about one of his proudest moments — helping upgrade the station’s Cold Atom Lab. This is a mini science lab the size of a small suitcase. It uses extreme cold to study strange rules of physics that only show up in space. Getting one part to fit correctly took hours of careful work.
Astronaut Sophie Adenot said she is excited to feel nature again. But she admitted she will miss floating weightlessly around the station and looking out the window at Earth.
Soon, a fresh crew called Crew-13 will launch to take their place. That mission had a small delay — engineers found a tiny leak in the Dragon spacecraft’s fuel system. The team replaced the broken part and fixed the problem. Crew-13 is now in quarantine (a kind of bubble to stay healthy before a big mission) and is aiming to launch in early October.
Why Does It Matter?
Seven months is a very long time to live in space! The human body is not used to being weightless for that long. Muscles weaken and bones can lose strength — a little like how your leg feels wobbly if you have been sitting still for too long, but much stronger.
After returning to Earth, the astronauts will spend weeks doing exercises to help their bodies recover. Scientists study how well they bounce back. This helps NASA plan safe trips to the Moon — and someday, all the way to Mars.
Big Words
- Mission — a planned journey with specific goals, like a very important trip to space
- Quarantine — when people stay in a clean, protected bubble before a big event to avoid getting sick
- Weightlessness — the floating feeling astronauts get in space, because both they and the station are falling around Earth at the same speed
- Cold Atom Lab — a tiny science machine on the space station that creates the coldest temperatures in the known universe — colder even than deep space!
Fun Fact
In seven months aboard the station, the Crew-12 astronauts traveled more than 86 million miles — about the same as flying from Earth to the Sun and back!
Think About It
If you were an astronaut returning from seven months in space, what is the very first thing you would want to do back on Earth?
Sources
- NASA — NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 to Discuss Station Mission, Upcoming Return
- Space.com — ‘I’m so looking forward to seeing nature again’: SpaceX’s Crew-12 astronauts gearing up for trip home to Earth
- NASA — NASA, SpaceX Adjust Crew-13 Launch Date
- Spokesman — NASA, SpaceX target early October launch as Crew-13 heads into quarantine