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SpaceX describes surgical intervention before launch of latest crew mission
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SpaceX launched a four-person crew to the International Space Station on Thursday, marking a landmark mission that includes the first Black woman to command a spacecraft. The Crew-13 mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, at 11:10 a.m. EDT (15:10 UTC) aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. Nine minutes later, the Dragon spacecraft reached orbit and began closing in on the ISS for docking that evening. The launch had been delayed from mid-September to replace a faulty valve in the Dragon's propulsion system, a repair that required cutting into a propellant line inside the ship.
Commander Jessica Watkins, a 38-year-old geologist turned astronaut, leads the crew and becomes the first Black woman to command a spacecraft. Watkins is the only veteran astronaut on the mission, having spent 170 days in orbit during a long-duration spaceflight in 2022. She is joined by pilot Luke Delaney, a Marine Corps veteran, Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk, a former Royal Canadian Air Force pilot, and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, selected to the Roscosmos Cosmonaut Corps in 2021. Kutryk's wife Heather is expecting their third child later this year, and Kutryk acknowledged the personal sacrifice on social media, calling the departure "the hardest thing I've ever done."
The mission achieved a notable milestone, reaching the ISS in approximately eight hours after launch β the fastest-ever launch-to-docking transit to the station by a U.S. spacecraft. "What an epic ride," Delaney radioed mission control shortly after reaching orbit, praising the continued legacy of human spaceflight. Thursday's flight was SpaceX's 13th crew rotation mission under NASA's multibillion-dollar commercial crew contract and the company's 21st human spaceflight overall.
SpaceX's Crew Dragon program restored America's ability to launch astronauts after a nine-year gap following the Space Shuttle retirement in 2011, ending NASA's sole dependence on Russia for crew transportation. However, SpaceX plans to retire the Crew Dragon around 2030, prompting NASA to work more closely with Boeing to bring its troubled Starliner capsule into service. The ISS has been permanently staffed since 2000, and NASA and its international partners plan to keep the orbiting laboratory operating through at least 2030.
