SpaceX delivers four astronauts to the International Space Station just 15 hours after launch
The four U.S., Russian and Japanese astronauts pulled up in their SpaceX capsule after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. They will spend at least six months at the orbiting lab, swapping places with colleagues up there since March. SpaceX will bring those four back as early as Wednesday.
Moving in are NASA's Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan's Kimiya Yui and Russia's Oleg Platonov — each of whom had been originally assigned to other missions.
Cardman and another astronaut were pulled from a SpaceX flight last year to make room for NASA's two stuck astronauts, Boeing Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose space station stay went from one week to more than nine months. Fincke and Yui had been training for the next Starliner mission. But with Starliner grounded by thruster and other problems until 2026, the two switched to SpaceX.
Platonov was bumped from the Soyuz launch lineup a couple of years ago because of an undisclosed illness.
Their arrival temporarily puts the space station population at 11.
While their taxi flight was speedy by U.S. standards, the Russians hold the record for the fastest trip to the space station — a lightning-fast three hours.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Digital Trends
an hour ago
- Digital Trends
NASA crew trains for a voyage no one's taken for 50 years
NASA's four Artemis II astronauts are continuing to train hard for the adventure of a lifetime, which is set to take place in a little over six months from now. The American space agency this week shared on update on the crewmembers' progress toward the launch of a voyage that will take them around the moon before returning to Earth. Recommended Videos NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, recently participated in a crew equipment interface test that involved performing launch day and simulated orbital activities inside Orion while wearing their spacesuits. The special training session took place at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, from where NASA's SLS rocket will power the Orion spacecraft and the crew toward the moon next year, possibly in April. 'Once in Orion, the crew performed several launch day activities, including communications checkouts and suit leak checks,' NASA said. 'For the first time, the crew was connected to the spacecraft and its communications and life control systems, and all umbilicals were connected while the spacecraft operated on full power.' To give the astronauts a feel of what to expect during their 10-day mission, they experienced various simulated ground and flight conditions. Some of the activities also included scenarios where the crew had to deal with potential issues while in space such as leaks and the failure of the air revitalization system fan, a vital mechanism for providing oxygen and removing carbon dioxide from the astronauts' cabin. 'Getting this hands-on experience and learning how to act fast to overcome potential challenges during flight helps ensure the crew is ready for any scenario,' NASA said. The crew was officially selected and announced in April 2023. At the time, the Artemis mission was set for launch in September 2025, but the date slipped due to technical and safety issues that required more time to resolve. The Artemis II voyage will follow the path of Artemis I. The uncrewed test flight launched in November 2022 and sent Orion within just 80 miles (about 130 km) of the lunar surface. 'In about six months, Artemis II astronauts will journey around the moon for the first time in 53 years,' acting NASA chief Sean Duffy said. 'America rallied behind Apollo because it represented the best of us — now it's Artemis' turn. They're not just carrying a flag — they're carrying the pride, power, and promise of the United States of America.' Duffy added: 'Every milestone in the Artemis campaign brings us closer to landing Americans back on the moon and pushing onward to Mars.' The Artemis III mission, which is currently set for no earlier than mid-2027, will put the first astronauts on the lunar surface since 1972.
Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
Coastal Commission vs. SpaceX: Round 2
With help from Camille von Kaenel ROCKET REMATCH: The California Coastal Commission is going for another round with Elon Musk's space company. U.S. Space Force officials will be back in front of the commission next Thursday with a proposal to double SpaceX's rocket launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base from 50 to 95 per year — and agency staff is recommending commissioners reject it. 'The simple fact remains that it is a privately owned company engaged in activities primarily for its own commercial business,' staff said in a report Friday. 'It is not a public federal agency or conducting its launches on behalf of the federal government.' The vote promises to reopen a rift between Musk and the agency after the commission rejected Space Force's previous proposal to increase SpaceX launches from 36 to 50, but cited Musk's politics and support for President Donald Trump in doing so. The commission drew a lawsuit from Musk — and a rebuke from Gov. Gavin Newsom at the time. 'I'm with Elon,' Newsom said in October after Musk sued the commission for political bias. 'You can't bring up that explicit level of politics.' The fight is flying further under the radar this time around, though. Where a bipartisan group of pro-space state and federal lawmakers spoke up for SpaceX ahead of October's vote — and environmentalists chimed in on behalf of nearby residents and wildlife they argued would be disturbed by the launches' sonic booms — that type of lobbying hasn't materialized. Neither Newsom's office nor SpaceX responded to a request for comment. Space Launch Delta 30 Commander Col. James T. Horne III, who oversees Vandenberg and Western operations, said in a statement that the commission staff recommendation doesn't change the military's 'unwavering commitment to preserving the California coastline' and that its partnership with SpaceX helps maintain 'its technological edge and strategic advantage over competitors.' The relative quiet comes amid a shifted political landscape, after Trump returned to power and Republicans swept Congress on a message of affordability and economic strength. Newsom and Democratic state lawmakers, faced with looming refinery closures and perpetually high building costs, are trying to boost in-state oil drilling and have already weakened environmental permitting for everything from wildfire fuel breaks to high-speed rail, putting environmentalists on the back foot. Jennifer Savage, California policy associate director for the Surfrider Foundation, said environmental groups are in rapid response mode, which has 'taken energy away from other things that we normally would have perhaps had more capacity to deal with.' 'I do think there's a lot of political overwhelm happening on all fronts, and that has divided people's attention perhaps more than when this first came up,' Savage said. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire have also shaken up the commission since last year, replacing members like former Chair Justin Cummings, former Vice Chair Paloma Aguirre and alternate Gretchen Newsom (no relation to Gavin Newsom), all of whom had bemoaned Musk's behavior. And Newsom himself spent the early part of this year clipping the commission's wings, issuing several executive orders in the wake of the Los Angeles fires to suspend the Coastal Act — the 1976 law that established the commission — in an effort to fast-track rebuilding. But there's also the reality that Space Force officials moved forward with the increase from 36 to 50 last year, even after the no vote, citing federal preemption and national security considerations. Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), one of the lawmakers who signed a bipartisan letter last year backing the launch increase, said the reality that the commission can't stop the military's plan means the issue has taken on less urgency. 'Now that the commission has proved its own irrelevance, maybe that same imperative doesn't exist,' said Kiley, who is pushing a bill that would limit state authority to review certain activities related to national security and post-disaster recovery and rebuilding. — AN Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! MERCURY RISING: Los Angeles landlords and tenants, get your fans ready. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance Tuesday to require landlords in its unincorporated areas to keep indoor temperatures in all the rooms of rental units below 82 degrees, either by using passive cooling methods like blackout curtains or by installing air conditioners. Chair Pro Tem and Supervisor Hilda L. Solis, who introduced the measure after three years of efforts to establish an indoor heat standard, called it a 'life-saving policy that prioritizes the health and dignity of renters' amid growing evidence that rising temperatures are triggering more heat illnesses and death. She said she hoped other cities in the region would follow suit. She and her co-author, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, agreed to partly carve out small landlords from the requirement amid pushback from the California Apartment Association and Supervisor Janice Hahn. Landlords who only own a few units will have until January 2032 to bring temperatures into check in every room of the unit; in the interim, they will have to keep only one room below 82 degrees. The compromise partly responded to a RAND report that recommended that Los Angeles policymakers should focus first on cooling one room instead of the whole unit so as not to stress the grid with new air conditioners. The ordinance takes effect in 30 days but won't be enforced until Jan. 1, 2027. — CvK AI YI YI: Artificial intelligence could be the power sector's savior — if the industry plays its cards right, California policy editor Debra Kahn writes in her latest column. Trump is canceling loan guarantees for wind-connected transmission lines and trying to block federal land from being used for wind power — but he's telling agencies to figure out how to build data centers on that same land. And those data centers need power. AI and its attendant data centers are projected to unleash the U.S. electricity industry's first net growth in 20 years. They could solve the industry's longstanding problem of spreading its growing costs across a shrinking pool of customers, if it can build fast enough to meet the demand. 'The size and the scale of what we're seeing now is unlike anything we've ever seen,' Pacific Gas & Electric Co. executive Mike Medeiros said, after PG&E got approval for a new rate structure to speed up connecting data centers to the grid. 'People will tell you — they probably haven't seen load growth like this since World War II.' — DK WHAT CANCELED PROGRAM?: The Trump administration is claiming it didn't really cancel a FEMA grant that funds disaster preparation and mitigation, four months after it shuttered the program. FEMA acting Administrator David Richardson wrote in a July 25 court declaration that 'despite FEMA's public announcements,' the agency actually didn't end the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, of which California is one of the largest beneficiaries. The document startled state and local officials and created new uncertainty about the administration's plans for helping communities with hurricanes, floods and other disasters, Thomas Frank reports for POLITICO's E&E News. Attorney General Rob Bonta joined 19 other AGs in a lawsuit last month challenging the program cancellation, arguing that the Trump administration violated congressional guidance to prioritize mitigation efforts and defied government spending authority by refusing to reallocate funds dedicated for BRIC to other programs. — AN CASTING SHADE: The Trump administration is making plans to cancel a $7 billion program funding solar projects in low-income communities across the country, people familiar with the agency's plan told POLITICO's Zack Colman, Alex Guillén and Kelsey Tamborrino on Tuesday. The termination letters are being drafted this week and could go out within days, according to a former EPA official familiar with the agency's plan granted anonymity to speak ahead of the release of the letters. The Solar for All program awarded money to state agencies, localities or nonprofit groups in almost every state to be used for residential rooftop panels, community solar developments or storage technologies — including $250 million to California state energy agencies that has yet to be distributed. Kym Meyer, litigation director at the Southern Environmental Law Center, signaled the group would pursue legal action if the administration terminates the grants. — The shipping company that delivers most of Hawaii's cars has stopped sending electric vehicles to the state because of the risk of battery fires. — Purple states are piling onto the lawsuit challenging Trump's freezing of federal electric vehicle funding. — A heat wave is coming to California this week, intensifying the wildfires already burning and raising the risk of more blazes.
Digital Trends
3 hours ago
- Digital Trends
Sadly, NASA's Lunar Trailblazer failed to do what it said on the tin
NASA has given up trying to reestablish contact with a small spacecraft that launched in February to map lunar water. The Lunar Trailblazer hitched a ride on the second Intuitive Machines robotic lunar lander mission, IM-2, which launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on February 26, 2025. Recommended Videos The spacecraft separated as planned from the rocket about 48 minutes after launch, and the mission team established communications with it about 10 minutes later. But contact was lost the following day and was never reestablished, preventing them team from performing the necessary thruster operations to keep the spacecraft on its flight trajectory toward the moon. And on Monday, NASA said the mission was officially over. The space agency added that from the limited data it had received, it appeared that the spacecraft's solar arrays had failed to properly orient toward the sun, causing its batteries to lose power. 'While it was not the outcome we had hoped for, mission experiences like Lunar Trailblazer help us to learn and reduce the risk for future, low-cost small satellites to do innovative science as we prepare for a sustained human presence on the moon,' Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a release, adding: 'Thank you to the Lunar Trailblazer team for their dedication in working on and learning from this mission through to the end.' The goal of the mission was to create high-resolution maps of water on the moon's surface. It could also have revealed what form the water is in, the amount present, and how it changes over time. NASA said the the maps built by the Lunar Trailblazer would also have supported future robotic missions and human exploration of the moon. More broadly, the endeavor could have helped scientists to better understand water cycles on airless bodies in our solar system. In an effort to save the spacecraft, a number of organizations around the world had been listening for the the Lunar Trailblazer's radio signal while also tracking its position. But data from ground radar and optical observations indicated that Lunar Trailblazer was in a slow spin and heading deeper into space. While the team had been hoping that the solar panels might receive sunlight and charge the batteries with enough power to turn on the radio and give it a chance of making contact, it never happened, and the Lunar Spacecraft is now too distant to save.
