SpaceX showcases its partnership strength with NASA again: the 12th mission to transport long-term astronauts to the International Space Station.

On Friday morning local time, a SpaceX rocket launched into space from Florida, carrying two NASA astronauts, one French astronaut, and one Russian astronaut to the International Space Station for an eight-month Earth orbit science mission. The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, topped with the Crew Dragon manned spacecraft named "Freedom," lifted off at around 5:15 a.m. Eastern Time from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station along the Atlantic coast of Florida. Live broadcasts from NASA and SpaceX showed the 25-story-high rocket slowly rising from the launch pad, with its nine Merlin engines roaring to life, consuming 700,000 gallons of fuel per second, and emitting steam and a red fireball lighting up the pre-dawn sky. The four astronauts were scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station on Saturday afternoon after a 34-hour flight, where they will dock with the orbiting laboratory platform located approximately 420 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth. This mission, named Crew-12, is the 12th long-duration mission to the International Space Station using SpaceX's transportation rockets since billionaire Elon Musk founded the private rocket company in 2002 and began sending American astronauts into orbit in May 2020. The Crew-12 mission is led by 48-year-old Jessica Meir, an experienced astronaut and marine biologist, who is making her second trip to the International Space Station. Seven years ago, she and her NASA colleague Christina Koch completed the historic first all-female spacewalk, making history. Accompanying her on the mission is 43-year-old Jack Hathaway, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and a rookie astronaut; Sophie Adenot, a 43-year-old European Space Agency astronaut and senior helicopter pilot from France; and Russian astronaut Andrey Fedyaev, a former military pilot on his second International Space Station mission. According to NASA, upon arrival, the team will immediately begin a series of scientific, medical, and technological research tasks in a microgravity environment. These tasks include studying pathogenic bacteria that cause pneumonia to improve treatment methods on Earth, and conducting experiments on plant and nitrogen-fixing microbe interactions to increase space food production. Currently, there are three astronauts on the International Space StationNASA astronaut Chris Williams and Russian astronauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaevawaiting the arrival of Crew-12. The four members of Crew-11 who were originally scheduled to remain at the space station until the arrival of Crew-12 had to undergo an unprecedented medical evacuation flight in mid-January due to a serious illness (specific details not disclosed), leaving the space station several weeks early. The International Space Station (ISS), roughly the size of a football field, is currently the largest artificial structure in space and is operated continuously by a consortium led by the United States and Russia, with member countries including Canada, Japan, and 11 European nations. The first hardware for the space station was launched more than 25 years ago. The concept behind the project was to improve relations between Washington and Moscow, and it was started after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which were the trigger points for the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. NASA has stated that it aims to continue operating the space station until the end of 2030. SpaceX, led by Musk, is actively advancing its IPO plan, with an estimated valuation of over $1.5 trillion, and is looking to launch a public offering around mid-2026 (possibly in June). SpaceX has been in talks with several banks, and the IPO fundraising could exceed several hundred billion dollars. SpaceX's expected valuation is close to Tesla's $1.6 trillion. The combination of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI will create the "Musk super business empire," which may be the ultimate destiny of the three companies founded by Musk. Recently, SpaceX made a major announcement of acquiring xAI, another private company founded by Musk and one of the strongest competitors of OpenAI in the artificial intelligence sector, creating a super tech giant with operations covering "commercial aviation (Starlink/Starshield) + computing power (ground/future orbit) + AI models (Grok AI models/AI intelligent agents) + marketing/distribution (X social media platform)."