NASA and SpaceX launch crew to space station on second try

Running a day late, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched Friday on a mission to deliver a fresh three-man one-woman crew to the International Space Station.

The Falcon 9 lifted off at 11:43 a.m. EDT from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as mission control kept a close eye on clouds rolling into the area shortly before launch time.

With commander Zena Cardman and co-pilot Mike Fincke monitoring cockpit displays, flanked on the left by Japanese Astronaut Kimiya Yui and on the right by cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, the Crew Dragon capsule began its climb.

After boosting the rocket out of the dense lower atmosphere, the first stage fell away as planned and returned for landing at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station — the 65th such landing in Florida — while the rocket's upper stage completed its ascent to orbit.

"I have no emotion but joy right now. That was absolutely transcendent — ride of a lifetime! Thank you. This has been an incredible honor," Cardman said as they reached orbit.

"Boy, it's great to be back in orbit again!" Finke said. "Thank you to SpaceX and NASA to get us here. What a ride!"

The crew originally hoped to take off Thursday, but clouds built up over the launch site and SpaceX called off the countdown just 67 seconds before liftoff. Weather was again a concern Friday, especially the possibility of high winds and waves along the crew's ascent trajectory.

Had the crew launched Thursday, it would have taken them nearly 40 hours to catch up with the space station. With a launch Friday, the trip was expected to take just 16 hours, setting up a docking at the forward Harmony module's space-facing port at 3 a.m. Saturday — the same time they would have docked had they launched Thursday.

For Cardman, the trip to space will finally fulfill a dream she had hoped to accomplish last year when she came within a month or so of launching to the space station as commander of an earlier Crew Dragon flight.

But she and Crew 9 crewmate Stephanie Wilson were bumped from the flight to free up two seats to bring Starliner astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Sunita Williams back to Earth after an extended stay in space.

Wilmore and Williams flew to the orbital lab complex in June 2024 in the first piloted flight of a Starliner. But their stay in space was extended because of Starliner propulsion system problems. NASA managers eventually opted to bring them down earlier this year aboard the Crew 9 Dragon, using the seats given up by Cardman and Wilson.

Wilson has not yet been assigned another flight, but Cardman was tapped to command of Crew 11.

"If I think about it only as an individual, and how it affected me, yes, of course, it was an unexpected change," she said. "But space flight is not about me or about any individual. It's about what we can do together. None of us can do this by ourselves.

"Now I have the opportunity to train with this wonderful, amazing crew. Life is a journey. It takes many turns, and I'm just grateful to be here."

Fincke is a 58-year-old three-flight veteran who trained to fly aboard Boeing's Starliner as did Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui. In the wake of the problems encountered last year during the Starliner test flight, both ended up assigned to Crew 11.

Platonov, making his first flight, was assigned to Crew 11 as part of a joint U.S.-Russian seat-swap program. The arrangement is intended to ensure at least one representative of each country is always on board the ISS even if one crew ferry ship has to depart in an emergency, taking all of its crew members with it.

Platonov is the seventh cosmonaut to fly aboard a Crew Dragon under the agreement.

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