Crew 12 Comes Home

After 236 days on orbit, NASA plans to bring Crew 12 home no earlier than Wednesday October 7th at 8:05 AM from the International Space Station. After launching on February 13th, 2026 on Falcon 9 B1101 aboard Crew Dragon Freedom and conducting research over the past 8 months they will splashdown off the coast of California as early as 11:34 AM on Thursday October 8th.

Over the past 8 months the crew has conducted research into medical advancements such as how how pneumonia causing bacteria can lead to long term heart damage, imaged blood flow of humans while on orbit and studying IV fluid generation in humans in a microgravity environment. They also studied nitrogen fixing of plants while on orbit.

Once the crew spashes down the main recovery will be aboard Shannon the west coast recovery vessel for spaceX. Once the crew has egressed from the hatch they will be assessed by medical professional and they will then be helicoptered to SpaceX headquarters where a NASA aircraft will fly them back to Johnson Space Center in Houston and there will be post flight briefing and then they will be able to return home to be with their families after way too long apart.

The time sensitive study returns will be quickly transmitted to the entity that is conducting the research whether it be in Florida, California, Houston or anywhere else in the world. Crew Dragon Freedom will then be transferred to the Port of Long Beach and it will have initial post flight inspections and eventually will make its way to Dragon processing facility at Kennedy Space Center for deeper inspection and refurbishment with the intent of flying more crew to low earth orbit. The soonest it would fly again would more than likely be on Crew 16.