SpaceX launched Crew 13 to the International Space Station on Thursday, sending a Canadian astronaut who will miss his third child's birth on a six-month mission.
A Falcon 9 rocket rose at 11:10 a.m. EDT from Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, lofting a Crew Dragon with four fliers bound for the orbiting outpost. CBS News reported the Crew 13 flight carried NASA commander Jessica Watkins, NASA pilot Luke Delaney, Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk.
The launch put three first-timers into orbit and returned Watkins to the station she already knows. Delaney, Kutryk, and Teteryatnikov became the 296th, 297th, and 298th people to fly aboard the ISS. Kutryk is the 17th Canadian to reach space.
For Kutryk the timing cuts deep. He and his wife, Heather, already have children ages 5 and 7. Their third child is due around Thanksgiving, roughly two months into the expedition. They will become only the fourth couple in spaceflight history to welcome a child while one parent is off the planet.
Before liftoff, Kutryk visited the pad with Heather and their children. He posted on X about the cost of going.
Joshua Kutryk wrote:
"Leaving these three (plus one on the way) is the hardest thing I've ever done, But that has always been the nature of exploration. Words from Fridtjof Nansen, describing his departure for the North Pole, resonate in my mind, 'Behind me lay all I held dear in life. And what lay before me? Happy child, little do you know what life is, how strangely mingled and how full of change... and now, a farewell to home. It was the darkest hour of the whole journey.'"
Heather Kutryk plans a launch of her own later this year. The family is living the trade that exploration has always demanded: real absence in service of work that cannot be done from the ground.
Minutes after liftoff the Falcon 9 first stage returned to a landing at the Space Force station. The second stage shut down, the Crew Dragon separated, and the capsule began the climb toward the station. Docking was planned for about 7 p.m. EDT after an eight-hour trip, an automated link-up at the forward port of the Harmony module.
The launch had slipped from a mid-September target so teams could replace a valve in the Crew Dragon’s propulsion system. Once clear, the rocket left on time and on profile.
After separation, pilot Luke Delaney, a former military test pilot making his first flight, keyed the mic.
Luke Delaney radioed:
"What an epic ride it was! Today, we proudly continue the streak of humans living and working in orbit, building on the legacies of yesterday to pave the way for future of space exploration. Huge thanks to the phenomenal teams at NASA, SpaceX, and all of our partners.... Deepest appreciation to my family and friends who stood by me throughout this entire endeavor. Thank you. I love you guys. And to the Marines back on Earth, Semper Fi."
Watkins, who holds a Ph.D. in geology and flew a Crew Dragon mission in 2022, takes command for the stay. She framed the work ahead in plain terms.
Jessica Watkins said:
"I personally am looking forward to returning to the ISS as well as flying on Dragon a second time, and really looking forward to experiencing those experiences through the eyes of my crewmates. We expect a very busy mission with lots of station maintenance, both internal and external, with a few EVAs (spacewalks) on the docket as well as visiting vehicle capture and stowage operations, lots of science... and plenty of outreach."
Delaney added that the mix of science, spacewalks, and expedition work looked like “a great time,” and that the new arrivals would integrate as an extension of the NASA and ISS teams already on board.
Crew 13 joined seven people already living on the station. Dana Weigel, director of NASA’s low-Earth orbit mission directorate, laid out the research portfolio waiting for them.
Dana Weigel said:
"During the mission, the crew will help us fight heart disease and Parkinson's disease by studying human stem cell-derived tissues that will help improve medicine, disease modeling, and pharmaceutical testing. They will also explore crop production that's important for longer-duration spaceflight missions, and they'll help us better understand blood flow abnormalities that we see in space, along with testing new diagnostic medical equipment for monitoring crew health. That's just a couple of the highlights of the research the crew will be doing on board."
That work sits alongside station upkeep. Roll-out solar array upgrades that began in June 2021 still need their final two sets installed on spacewalks planned for late this month and early November. A SpaceX Cargo Dragon is due Oct. 13 with supplies, science gear, spare parts, and two of those arrays. A Northrop Grumman cargo ship is expected in December, with Russian Progress freighters on the calendar for November and February.
Kutryk spoke to the larger meaning of the station itself, the hardware and the partnership that keeps it flying.
Joshua Kutryk said:
"When I think about the space station, I hope the legacy is that people see this beacon in the sky going around Earth, one of the most complex things humans have ever, ever created, and they see it for all of its technical marvel and all the science and discoveries we're making there. But (I hope) they also see it as sort of this beacon for what we can do when we make good decisions, when we work together and we collaborate and we prioritize things. It's testament to what we've done, what we can do, and really to what we hope the generations that follow can do."
The Canadian Space Agency has long supplied robot arms that helped build the station and still supports the U.S. program. CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen flew around the moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission. Kutryk’s flight continues that lane of practical partnership.
Waiting to greet the newcomers were Crew 12 commander Jessica Meir, pilot Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. Their 235-day mission began with a Falcon 9 launch on Feb. 13. Also aboard were Soyuz MS-29 fliers Pyotr Dubrov, Anna Kikina, and NASA astronaut Anil Menon, who launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 14 for an eight-month stay slated to end in early April 2027.
Crew 12 planned to undock Oct. 5 and splash down just past noon EDT on Oct. 6 in the Pacific off Southern California. Meir, a two-flight veteran with seven spacewalks, put family first on the return list.
Jessica Meir said:
"I think the thing that I'm looking forward to most is seeing my 3-and-a-half-year-old daughter. I'm so looking forward to seeing nature again, feeling the breeze on my face, the wind rustling through the leaves, experiencing all those things that we don't have up here. But I will very, very much miss being weightless all the time and the incredible views that we have."
Hathaway kept it simple.
Jack Hathaway said:
"Going home and being able to take a nice long hot shower will be very relaxing and very nice. And, of course, I'm looking forward to seeing my family. But a hot shower is near the top of my list."
The handoff is routine station business: one crew arrives, another finishes its work, cargo ships keep the outpost stocked, and research continues without a break in human presence. No current rockets can overcome the station’s orbital momentum and reverse course when the vehicle is moving at nearly 5 miles per second, so timing the launch to Earth’s rotation remains the only practical path to a rendezvous.
American private launch muscle, NASA mission management, and partner agencies still put crews on orbit on a working schedule. Families absorb the cost in missed birthdays and, in Kutryk’s case, a birth itself. The station keeps flying because people accept that bargain and the systems behind them deliver.
Exploration has never been free. The bill comes due at home, and the work still gets done.
