SpaceX launched its eleventh crewed mission to the International Space Station on Friday. A Falcon 9 launched a Crew Dragon at 3:43 p.m. UTC from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The launch of the spacecraft, named Endeavour and contracted by NASA, took place a day later than planned due to poor weather.
The Crew-11 mission carries NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, along with Kimiya Yui of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, for a stay of approximately six months. Cardman is the mission commander, Fincke is the pilot, and Yui and Platonov are the mission specialists. The flight to the orbital complex is expected to take approximately 15 hours.
This crew will replace the four members of SpaceX’s Crew-10, who arrived at the Space Station in March and will return to Earth in a few days. They are Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers of NASA, Takuya Onishi of JAXA, and Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos.
This is the first spaceflight for Cardman and Platonov, the second for Yui, and the fourth for Fincke. It is the sixth mission for Endeavour, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule with the most flights.
