One veteran astronaut and three first-time flyers are prepared to start a six-month mission to the Worldwide House Station as a part of the NASA and SpaceX Crew-13 mission. NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, in addition to Canadian House Company astronaut Joshua Kutryk and cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, will launch on Thursday, Oct. 1, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station in Florida. This mission can also be set to mark the shortest time between launch and docking for any Crew Dragon car.
Crew Dragon C213, named Grace, will fly on its second-ever mission and its first long-duration keep on the orbiting laboratory. It first flew in June 2025 as a part of the Axiom-4 mission and spent simply over 20 days in house.
With an on-time launch at 11:10 AM EDT (15:10 UTC) on Oct. 1, the crew will spend solely about eight hours and 50 minutes free-flying earlier than their capsule autonomously docks with the ahead port of the Station’s Concord module. The earlier report was set by Crew-11, which made the journey in slightly below 15 hours.
Points with the capsule pushed the launch from a Sept. 12 try to its present date. In keeping with NASA, throughout customary prelaunch spacecraft processing, an oxidizer leak was present in Dragon’s propulsion system. The Crew Dragon car is provided with 16 Draco thrusters for on-orbit maneuvering. It makes use of hypergolic propellants, that means they ignite upon contact with one another. SpaceX makes use of monomethyl hydrazine as gasoline and nitrogen tetroxide as oxidizer.
The crew of 4 waited patiently in Houston whereas the issue was solved and arrived in Florida on Sept. 26 forward of the launch. Additionally they participated in a dry costume rehearsal on Sept. 29, which concerned working by means of all of the launch-day actions as much as liftoff with no propellants loaded into the rocket.
Crew-13’s commander, NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, is the one spaceflight veteran of this crew. She joined NASA as a part of the 2017 astronaut class and first flew aboard Crew Dragon Freedom on its inaugural flight, Crew-4. This could additionally make her the primary lively NASA astronaut to fly twice on Crew Dragon and the fourth particular person ever to take action, becoming a member of Axiom astronauts Peggy Whitson and Michael López-Alegria, cosmonaut Andrew Fedyaev, and now-NASA administrator Jared Isaacman.
She spent 170 days in house supporting Expeditions 67 and 68, conducting intensive science and analysis, which she could be very accustomed to. Previous to her choice as an astronaut, Watkins was a postdoctoral fellow on the California Institute of Know-how, following her research at UCLA in planetary science and geology. She was a member of the science workforce for the Curiosity Mars rover. At NASA, she additionally grew to become an aquanaut as a part of the NEEMO underwater analysis program.
Crew-13 arrives on the Kennedy House Heart forward of launch. From left to proper: Teteryatnikov, Delaney, Watkins, and Kutryk. (Credit score: Julia Bergeron for NSF)
Crew-13’s pilot is the Florida-born and raised NASA astronaut Luke Delaney. Delaney was first chosen to be a NASA astronaut in 2021 as a part of the twenty third astronaut class.
Luke enlisted with the U.S. Marine Corps in 1998 as a naval aviator. He noticed fight in December 2001 in Afghanistan as a part of Operation Enduring Freedom. After returning and primarily flying the KC-130, he ultimately grew to become a take a look at pilot teacher on the T-6B, C-12C, U-6A, and NU-1B plane. In complete, together with time with NASA, Delaney has logged greater than 3,700 hours of flight time in 48 completely different plane. After leaving the Marines in 2020, he joined NASA’s Langley Analysis Heart in Virginia to help with airborne science missions.
“Loads of what we’re doing on Earth to raised perceive house, we’re doing in house to raised perceive Earth,” Delaney stated in an August 2026 interview with NSF.
Crew-13 mission specialist Joshua Kutryk, set to be the primary Canadian astronaut to fly as a part of NASA’s Industrial Crew Program, is getting ready for his first journey to house. He would be the second Canadian to fly on a Crew Dragon capsule following Mark Pathy’s flight as a part of the primary Axiom non-public mission. Kutryk was one in all two folks chosen for the Canadian House Company’s (CSA) 2017 astronaut group, alongside Jenni Gibbons. The latter grew to become a part of the Artemis II backup crew and was a CAPCOM through the historic lunar flyby mission.
Watkins, Kutryk, and Delaney throughout EVA swimsuit coaching forward of launch. (Credit score: NASA)
Whereas that is his first flight into house, this isn’t the primary flight he has been assigned to. In 2023, it was introduced Kutryk would fly as a part of the primary operational crew flight of Boeing’s Starliner car. Nonetheless, following the Crew Flight Check with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — which might later be categorized as a Kind A mishap, essentially the most extreme at NASA — Starliner-1 was switched to a cargo resupply mission.
Of the 4 astronauts scheduled to fly on Starliner on the time of the mission’s reassignment, Mike Fincke and Kimia Yui would go on to fly aboard Crew-11, whereas its deliberate commander Scott Tingle now heads the astronaut workplace at NASA. This left Kutryk in limbo till April 2026, when he was chosen for Crew-13.
Born in Alberta, he would go on to graduate from the Royal Navy School of Canada earlier than getting grasp’s levels at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical College and Air College within the US and once more on the Royal Navy School of Canada. He graduated from take a look at pilot college at Edwards Air Pressure Base and flew with the Royal Canadian Air Pressure flying the CF-188. He noticed deployments to Afghanistan and Libya.
The second mission specialist, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatrikov, was chosen by Roscosmos in Jan. 2021. He graduated from Russia’s Naval Engineering Institute earlier than occurring to work on submarines.
Crew Dragon Grace arrives at SLC-40 in late September for integration with Falcon 9. (Credit score: SpaceX)
Crew-13 is ready to launch from SpaceX’s House Launch Advanced 40 (SLC-40) on the Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station in Florida. SpaceX eliminated the crew entry arm at historic Launch Advanced 39A (LC-39A) a number of months in the past, that means all future crew missions are anticipated to launch from SLC-40.
The booster that may carry them into house is B1101, flying on its third mission. It first flew a Starlink mission in January 2026, then launched Crew-12 in February. That crew is ready to return again to Earth shortly after Crew-13’s arrival. The booster for this mission will seemingly fly once more after this mission, as it’s set to carry out a return-to-launch-site (RTLS) touchdown at Touchdown Zone 40 (LZ-40), positioned straight adjoining to SLC-40.
This mission comes at an attention-grabbing time. SpaceX’s President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, when requested about Crew Dragon’s future, stated it’s not being retired at the moment however indicated a slowdown in this system and famous Starliner’s lack of flights to the Station. To this point in September, NASA has introduced that Crew-15, Crew-16, and Crew-17 will all fly aboard a Crew Dragon along with the already assigned Crew-14.
At a NASA media briefing previous to the Crew-13 launch, officers stated they plan to fly astronauts aboard Starliner by 2028 and acknowledged their curiosity in exercising their possibility for a fifth and sixth flight to the Station with the Boeing capsule.
(Lead picture: Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon Grace sit atop SLC-40 forward of Crew-13. Credit score: Max Evans for NSF)
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