SpaceX test fires its Falcon 9 rocket ahead of midweek launch of Crew-12 to the space station

The nine Merlin 1D engines at the base of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket briefly ignited during a static fire test of the vehicle on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. This test was a precursor to the launch of Crew-12 to the International Space Station. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now

An early morning rocket engine test at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station brings NASA and SpaceX one step closer to flying the next long duration mission to the International Space Station.

At 3:16 a.m. EST (0816 UTC) on Sunday, Feb. 8, the nine Merlin 1D engines at the base of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket roared to life for about 10 seconds. This static fire test at Space Launch Complex 40 was designed to validate the systems on the launch vehicle before flight.

Teams will evaluate the data from the test to ensure that they are ready to progress towards launch day. There will also be a dry dress rehearsal ahead of the mission, which will see a full run-through of launch day operations.

NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway along with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will don their flight suits at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkouts building before being driven to the pad where they will practice boarding the Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft.

The crew are all wearing upgraded flight suits, similar to the one worn by Crew-11 Pilot Mike Fincke during his mission that concluded in January. Once on orbit, Crew-12 will perform a roughly eight-month mission onboard the ISS.

This will be the second human spaceflight mission to take off from SLC-40. On launch day, SpaceX will also use its new landing pad, called Landing Zone 40, which will receive the booster, tail number 1101, less than eight minutes after liftoff.