Pennsylvania native flying on next SpaceX Dragon flight
NASA says Allegheny County native and veteran astronaut Mike Fincke will make his fourth trip to the International Space Station on a SpaceX flight scheduled for this summer.
The SpaceX Crew-11 mission will take Fincke, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov from the Kennedy Space Center to the ISS.
The crew will launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on the company's Falcon 9 rocket in either late July or early August. NASA says the crew will 'conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future missions to the Moon, as well as benefit people on Earth.'
Fincke has logged 382 days in space and nine spacewalks in his first three missions, the last of which was in 2011. The commander on Fincke's last mission was astronaut Mark Kelly, who now serves in the United States Senate.
This will be Platonov's and Cardman's first spaceflight, while Tui has made one previous trip to space. The crew is scheduled to return to Earth in 2026.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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