NASA’s Crew-13 launches four astronauts toward the International Space Station
A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Florida on October 1 with a four-person crew. NASA plans for their Dragon spacecraft to dock with the station later Thursday.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission launched at 11:10 a.m. EDT on Thursday, October 1, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, sending four crew members toward the International Space Station. The liftoff moves a planned science expedition into flight; the next milestone is the Dragon spacecraft’s arrival at the station.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 carried the Dragon spacecraft from Space Launch Complex 40. NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney are aboard with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Their launch follows NewsJaws’ earlier report on NASA’s planned October 1 flight: the scheduled departure has now taken place.
Who is aboard Crew-13
The mission brings together two NASA astronauts, a Canadian astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut. The Canadian Space Agency said in its September 22 mission update that the four were expected to live and work on the station for approximately six months. That duration was an expectation before launch, rather than a confirmed end date for their stay.
Watkins has been to the station before, spending time there in 2022, according to the Associated Press. AP reported that she became the first Black woman to lead a crew to orbit on this flight. Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov are making their first trips to space, AP reported. Before launch, Kutryk told AP, ‘We feel like some of the luckiest people in the world.’
AP also reported that the launch followed a three-week delay to address a leak in the capsule’s fuel system. NASA’s launch announcement did not give that explanation. The delay provides context for Thursday’s liftoff, but the agency’s release does not say that it changed the work planned for the crew aboard the station.
When Dragon is scheduled to reach the station
NASA plans for Dragon to dock autonomously at the forward port of the station’s Harmony module at about 7 p.m. EDT Thursday. Its schedule calls for arrival coverage to begin at 5:20 p.m. and for the hatch to open around 8:45 p.m. NASA says those times are estimates that can change during flight operations. If the planned seven-hour, 50-minute trip is completed on schedule, NASA says it would be the fastest launch-to-docking journey by a U.S. spacecraft in International Space Station history.
During the flight, SpaceX is monitoring Dragon’s automatic maneuvers from its mission control center in Hawthorne, California. NASA is monitoring station operations from Johnson Space Center in Houston. The agency has said it will stream the crew’s arrival, docking and hatch opening. Those operations are separate steps between launch and the start of the crew’s work aboard the orbiting laboratory.
What Crew-13 will study aboard the station
NASA says the crew’s planned research includes producing tissues derived from human stem cells in microgravity. The agency describes possible uses for that work in personalized medicine, disease modeling and testing treatments for conditions including heart disease and Parkinson’s. These are research aims; NASA’s launch announcement does not report results from the Crew-13 experiments.
The mission also includes work on growing crops with a mostly autonomous plant-growth system and testing how plants grow outside dedicated facilities. NASA says crew members will continue studies of factors linked to blood-flow abnormalities in microgravity and test a new in-flight diagnostic device for monitoring astronaut health. Together, those projects cover both life aboard the station and questions researchers hope to investigate using its microgravity environment.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the crew would carry forward work on the station while helping build experience for future Moon missions. NASA describes Crew-13 as part of its Low Earth Orbit Program, which works with private companies to carry people to the station and support research there. The agency has also pointed to more than 25 years of continuous human presence on the station as the foundation for ongoing science and technology work.
Crew handover after arrival
Once aboard, Watkins, Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov are expected to join Expedition 75 members Anil Menon, Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, whom NASA says are already on the station. The arriving crew is then due to make a brief handover with Crew-12 members Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot and Andrey Fedyaev before that mission returns to Earth.
NASA’s September 29 advisory said Crew-12’s return was expected to begin no earlier than Monday, October 5, and that the agency would provide more detail after Crew-13 arrived. For now, NASA’s October 1 announcement establishes the launch and sets out the work and handover planned for the crew’s stay.
Sources and context
- NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 Launches to International Space StationNASA
- SpaceX launches 4 astronauts on a fast track to the International Space StationAssociated Press
- Crew-13 Space Station mission prepares for October 1 launchCanadian Space Agency
- NASA Sets Crew-13 Launch, Docking CoverageNASA
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.
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