> Science The Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is taking off this month. NASA announced on Friday that the launch atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is targeted no earlier than July 31 at 9:39 pm IST from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. .@NASA and @SpaceX are targeting no earlier than July 31 at 12:09 p.m. EDT for the launch of the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station, pending mission readiness. pic.twitter.com/pxkdqLXK8f — International Space Station (@Space_Station) July 10, 2025 "NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than July 31 at 12:09 p.m. EDT for the launch of the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station, pending mission readiness," the agency posted on X. Falcon 9 is targeted to launch Dragon and Crew-11 to the @Space_Station no earlier than Thursday, July 31 from pad 39A in Florida https://t.co/T1Db4J4gFM pic.twitter.com/pVH0Nxq71b — SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 10, 2025 The Crew-11 mission includes four astronauts - Commander Zena Cardman and Pilot Mike Fincke of NASA with mission specialists Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Oleg Palotonov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos - who will spend six months aboard the orbiting lab. While Fincke is flying for the fourth time, Crew-11 marks the debut mission for Cardman and Platonov and the second for Yui. According to NASA, Fincke has logged 382 days in space and nine spacewalks during Expedition 9 in 2004, Expedition 18 in 2008, and STS-134 in 2011, the final flight of space shuttle Endeavour. Yui, on the other hand, has experience of living 142 days in space. In 2009, he flew as a flight engineer for Expedition 44/45 and became the first Japanese astronaut to capture JAXA's H-II Transfer Vehicle.