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Most recent Crew Dragon image from NASA’s public library
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SpaceX Crew Dragon Crew-12 "Freedom" is currently docked at the International Space Station, carrying four astronauts in low Earth orbit at 420km altitude. When Dragon is docked, it travels with the ISS and is visible as a single bright object — magnitude up to -4 during favourable passes.
OrbitalNodes tracks Crew Dragon in real time using live TLE data. When docked to the ISS, Dragon orbits as part of the same complex — you can see both together passing overhead as a single bright moving light on any clear evening during twilight.
🔭 TRACK CREW DRAGON LIVEYes — when Dragon is docked to the ISS, both spacecraft travel together and are visible as a single bright object. The ISS with Dragon docked reaches magnitude -4 during favourable passes, making it one of the brightest objects in the night sky after the Moon and Venus. It appears as a fast-moving star crossing the sky in about 5 minutes. Use OrbitalNodes to find your next pass time.
Crew-12 is the twelfth crewed Dragon mission to the ISS, launching in February 2026 aboard the spacecraft "Freedom". The mission carries four astronauts on a long-duration expedition of approximately 8 months. Dragon docks at the ISS Harmony module forward port and serves as an emergency lifeboat for the crew throughout the mission.
Dragon launches on a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After separating from the upper stage, Dragon performs a series of orbital manoeuvres over approximately 24 hours to match the ISS's orbit and approach for docking. The docking is autonomous — Dragon flies itself using GPS and LiDAR sensors to dock with the ISS's standard international docking adapter.
Each Dragon capsule is a distinct physical object assigned its own NORAD catalogue number when it reaches orbit. Crew-1 through Crew-12 each have different IDs. When Dragon is docked to the ISS, its position is essentially the same as the ISS — OrbitalNodes tracks the Dragon ID directly when available, and uses the ISS position as a proxy when the Dragon TLE is not yet in the public catalog.
At the end of the mission Dragon autonomously undocks from the ISS and performs a deorbit burn to reenter Earth's atmosphere. Reentry takes about 30 minutes, with the capsule experiencing temperatures up to 1,600°C on its heat shield. Dragon splashes down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast — SpaceX moved Dragon recoveries there in 2025 — where recovery ships retrieve the capsule and crew shortly afterwards.
Crew Dragon is designed to carry up to seven people, but NASA flies four astronauts on its operational ISS missions and uses the extra room for cargo. Private flights such as Inspiration4 and the Polaris missions also flew four. The capsule is fully autonomous, so the crew are essentially passengers for launch, docking and reentry.
Yes — partially. Crew Dragon (officially Dragon 2) was the first reusable crewed spacecraft: individual capsules have flown up to four times. Crew-12’s capsule, “Freedom”, previously flew Crew-4 and Crew-9 plus two private Axiom missions. The Falcon 9 booster that launches it is also recovered and reused, and the capsule’s heat shield and components are refurbished between flights.
In orbit Dragon moves at roughly 28,000 km/h (about 7.7 km per second) — the same orbital speed as the ISS — circling Earth about every 90 minutes. That speed is why a docked Dragon-plus-ISS crosses your sky in only about five minutes. During reentry the capsule slows dramatically as it meets the atmosphere before parachutes lower it to a gentle splashdown.
Crew Dragon's NORAD ID changes with each mission. OrbitalNodes tracks Crew-12 Freedom (NORAD 67796). When Dragon is docked to the ISS, tracking either spacecraft gives essentially the same position — they are physically connected. After undocking, Dragon's TLE diverges from the ISS within hours as it performs its deorbit sequence.