Sophie Adenot Docks With International Space Station to Begin Eight-Month Mission

Overview

• SpaceX’s Crew-12 capsule docked with the ISS at 21:15 Paris time on February 14 after roughly 34 hours in transit, with hatches opening about two hours later.
• Adenot, 43, is the second French woman in space and the 84th woman globally, joining NASA’s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.
• The crew launched from Cape Canaveral on February 13 at 05:15 local time following a two‑day weather delay aboard a Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon.
• Over the next eight months, the crew plans to conduct about 200 experiments, including testing CNES’s EchoFinder system for autonomous ultrasound in microgravity.
• The mission unfolds on a station that remains a rare venue for U.S.–Russian cooperation, with retirement of the ISS targeted around 2030 and Crew-12’s return expected in October.