Four space station crewmates undocked and plunged back to Earth Thursday, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast six days after NASA ordered them home early because of a medical issue.
The NROL-105 mission is the first of about a dozen missions planned for 2026 that support the NRO’s so-called proliferated architecture satellite constellation. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 8:39:51 p.m. PST (11:39:51 p.m. EST / 0439:51 UTC).
The Starlink 6-98 mission added 29 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites to the low Earth orbit constellation. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 1:08 p.m. EST (1808 UTC).
The three astronauts and cosmonaut are scheduled to undock from the space station at 5:05 p.m. EST (2205 UTC) on Wednesday, Jan. 14, and splashdown off the coast of California at 3:41 a.m. EST (0841 UTC).
NASA astronaut Mike Fincke took over command of the International Space Station on Dec. 7, 2025. He and the rest of the SpaceX Crew-11 mission will undock from the ISS on Jan. 14.
The Starlink 6-97 mission was the fifth Falcon 9 rocket launch of 2026, a rate of roughly one flight every 2.5 days. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 4:08:20 p.m. EST (2108:20 UTC).
The flight included 40 deployment events for a variety of payloads, including NASA’s Pandora spacecraft. Liftoff from pad 4E happened at 5:44 a.m. PST (8:44 a.m. EST / 1344 UTC).
In keeping with the agency’s strict medical privacy policy, NASA officials have not identified the astronaut in question or provided any details about the nature of the medical issue.
The Starlink 6-96 mission added another 29 broadband internet satellites to the low Earth orbit constellation. SpaceX launched from Space Launch Complex 40 on Friday, Jan. 9, at 4:41 p.m. EST (2141 UTC).
U.S. spacewalk 94 was slated to have NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman perform a variety of operations around the orbiting outpost during the roughly 6.5-hour-long event. A new date for the spacewalk hasn’t been announced.
The U.S. Space Force aims to attract new launch capabilities for the Western Range to bolster domestic access to space. Responses are due by Feb. 12, 2026.