SpaceX Crew-13 Reaches Orbit as Dragon Chases Fastest Docking Yet

SpaceX sent four astronauts toward the International Space Station on Thursday morning, overcoming a thunderstorm-heavy forecast that had threatened to delay the flight by a day. A Falcon 9 rose from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:10 a.m. ET, carrying the Dragon capsule Grace, according to NASA.

Aboard are NASA commander Jessica Watkins, NASA pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov are all making their first trip to space, while Watkins, who flew on Crew-4 in 2022, becomes the first NASA astronaut to launch on a Crew Dragon twice. The booster, B1101, returned to Landing Zone 40 next to the pad on its third flight, having previously flown Crew-12 and a Starlink mission.

Docking at the forward port of the Harmony module is targeted for roughly 7 p.m. ET, about seven hours and 50 minutes after liftoff — a pace that would make it the quickest Crew Dragon transit to the station so far, well ahead of the 15 to 24 hours typical of most Dragon flights. Hatch opening is set for about 8:25 p.m. ET.

The mission slipped more than two weeks past its original target after an oxidizer leak turned up in Grace’s propulsion system in August, prompting extra testing. That delay also pushed back the return of Crew-12, on station since February and now due to splash down off Southern California next week. Crew-13 is expected to remain in orbit for about six months. NASA has already ordered crew rotations from SpaceX through Crew-17, while Boeing works toward an uncrewed Starliner flight possibly as early as December. Thursday was a packed day for the company: a Falcon 9 launched Transporter-18 from California, and a Falcon Heavy was set to lift the classified NROL-97 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office from Launch Complex 39A late in the evening.