SpaceX launched four crew members to the International Space Station on Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, despite earlier concerns about thunderstorms and gusty winds.
A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and soared northeast over the Atlantic Ocean, carrying NASA's Crew-13 mission. The Dragon capsule, named Grace, is expected to take approximately eight hours to dock with the space station.
The four crew members will spend up to six months living and working aboard the orbiting outpost before returning to Earth.
Commander Jessica Watkins, a geologist and NASA astronaut, is making her second trip to space. She previously launched to the station on the Crew-4 mission in 2022, accumulating 170 days in space. She was the first Black woman to serve on the space station and holds the record for the most time in space of any Black woman.
Pilot Luke Delaney, a naval aviator and NASA astronaut, is making his first spaceflight. He grew up in DeBary, Florida, approximately 50 miles from the Space Coast. "I did grow up pretty close to here," Delaney said ahead of the launch. "I got to watch Space Shuttle launches, and now I'm going to get to see it from a little bit different perspective." Deltona High School, where Delaney studied, declared Thursday "Luke Delaney Day" as students gathered outside to watch the launch.
Joining them as mission specialists are Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, both making their first trips to space.
Grace is the fifth and final Dragon spacecraft built by SpaceX. It has made one previous trip to the station, carrying four private astronauts on the Axiom Ax-4 mission.
The Crew-13 mission patch pays tribute to Apollo 13, the 1970 NASA mission in which an explosion 55 hours after launch crippled the spacecraft and forced a dramatic rescue effort. "I think it really represents what we can do when we're faced with extremely challenging and dire circumstances," said NASA's Dana Weigel. "I give the crew a lot of credit for giving the nod to Apollo 13 and kind of giving credit to that and representing that in the mission patch that they chose."
During their time on the station, the crew will perform maintenance on the orbiting laboratory and conduct a range of scientific experiments. These include a stem cell investigation aimed at improving understanding of Parkinson's disease treatment, research into crop production in space to support future long-duration missions, and testing of new medical equipment for monitoring crew health.
The mission had originally been scheduled for mid-September but was delayed after a leak of oxidizer was detected on the Dragon capsule during processing. "It took a lot of effort, time, [and] many, many hours in determined troubleshooting to put us on the right path for launch," said Lori Glaze, NASA's head of human spaceflight.
Crew-13 will relieve the members of the Crew-12 mission, which launched to the station in February. The Crew-12 members are expected to return to Earth next week, splashing down off the coast of Southern California.
This marks SpaceX's 13th operational mission for NASA and its 14th overall for the agency, which includes a test flight carrying two astronauts to the station in 2020.
