By Burt Dicht
NSS Space Coast Correspondent
The four crew members who will fly NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station arrived on Florida’s Space Coast Saturday, Sept. 26, beginning the final days of preparation for their flight to orbit.
NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikovare are shown in the photo above (left to right) displaying their mission plaque inside a training mockup of a space station module (photo credit: NASA/Morgan Gridley).
The four flew from Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston aboard T-38 aircraft, touching down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center (photo by Burt Dicht).
The crew is now in Astronaut Crew Quarters inside Kennedy’s Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, where they will remain in quarantine and complete final preparations for the mission.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 11:10 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 1, for liftoff aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. NASA, SpaceX, and the agency’s international partners gave the mission the “go” to continue toward launch following a Flight Readiness Review on Sept. 25.
Following their arrival, the Crew-13 astronauts answered questions about the upcoming mission. The crew has been training together for the past year and spoke about the privilege of becoming part of the Expedition 75 crew. They also discussed the scientific research they will conduct aboard the station, including experiments that will contribute to future long-duration spaceflight and NASA’s return to the Moon.
Meet Crew-13
Watkins will command Crew-13, making her second trip to the International Space Station. A geologist and planetary scientist, she previously flew aboard Crew-4 in 2022 and spent 170 days in space as a member of Expeditions 67 and 68.
Before becoming an astronaut, Watkins studied the geology of Mars and was a member of the science team for NASA’s Curiosity rover at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She earned a bachelor’s degree in geological and environmental sciences from Stanford University and a doctorate in geology from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Delaney, the Crew-13 pilot, will be making his first spaceflight. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, he is a naval aviator and test pilot who also served as a research pilot at NASA’s Langley Research Center, supporting airborne science missions.
Delaney also has a local connection. His hometown is DeBary, Florida, north of Orlando and not far from the Space Coast. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of North Florida and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School.
Kutryk also will be making his first flight into space. Selected by the Canadian Space Agency in 2017, he previously served as a CF-18 fighter pilot and as an experimental and operational test pilot. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base and holds degrees in mechanical engineering, space studies, flight test engineering, and defense studies.
Teteryatnikov rounds out the international crew and will also be making his first spaceflight. Before his selection for the Russian cosmonaut corps in 2021, he served in a variety of naval engineering positions. He has served as a test cosmonaut since 2023.
The 13th Crew Rotation
Crew-13 will be the 13th crew rotation mission flown by SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and the 14th crewed Dragon flight to the International Space Station under the program when the Demo-2 test flight is included.
Once aboard the station, Watkins, Delaney, Kutryk, and Teteryatnikov will become members of Expedition 75. During their stay, they will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations designed to benefit people on Earth and support future human exploration of the Moon and Mars.
If Crew-13 launches on Oct. 1, the trip to the station will be a relatively quick one. NASA currently plans for Dragon to dock with the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module at approximately 8 p.m. EDT, less than nine hours after liftoff.
For now, the four crew members are spending their final days on Earth at Kennedy, completing the preparations for their flight to the International Space Station.
A Busy Week for SpaceX
Crew-13 is just one part of a busy week for SpaceX. Starship Flight 14 is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 28, with a launch window from 8:15 to 9:30 a.m. EDT.
Thursday, Oct. 1, could be particularly busy. In addition to the Crew-13 launch at 11:10 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, SpaceX is scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California during a window from 2:18 to 3:16 p.m. EDT. The day could conclude with a Falcon Heavy launch from Kennedy Space Center at 11:53 p.m. EDT.
If the schedules hold, SpaceX could launch Starship, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy from three different launch sites across the country in just four days — another indication of how quickly the pace of spaceflight is increasing.
