Brandon Fletcher
A New Crew of Astronauts and a Cosmonaut Set for Launch to the International Space Station
The highly anticipated SpaceX Crew-13 mission is set to launch this week, transporting a team of astronauts and one cosmonaut to the International Space Station (ISS). The launch is scheduled for today, October 1, at 11:10 AM ET from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Viewers can catch the live coverage on the NASA YouTube channel, Netflix, Discovery+, X, NASA+, and Amazon Prime Video starting at 9:20 AM ET.
Jessica Watkins, a geologist and a member of the Curiosity rover science team, will serve as the spacecraft commander for this mission. Luke Delaney, a seasoned research pilot at NASA’s Langley Research Center, will take on the role of pilot. Both are joined by several crew members who will make their inaugural journey into space. This includes CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk, who is also embarking on his first spaceflight, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, who will be visiting the ISS for the first time.
Crew-13 is tasked with conducting vital scientific research and technology demonstrations aimed at preparing humanity for future exploration missions to the Moon and Mars. this crew will relieve the SpaceX Crew-12 mission team, who had to temporarily shelter in their capsule due to an air leak discovered on the ISS last June. Notably, NASA plans for this mission’s travel time—seven hours and 50 minutes from launch to docking—to become the quickest in US spacecraft history.
While missions to transport astronauts and cosmonauts to the ISS occur regularly, Crew-13 is launching amidst NASA’s larger objective of returning humans to the Moon’s surface. Although the agency now anticipates reaching this goal by 2028, it successfully completed Artemis II, a lunar flyby mission, on April 10, and plans to test lunar landers developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX during Artemis III in 2027.
Daniel Mercer
David Bridges
