‘An amazing ride’: SpaceX flight led by first Black female commander sets US speed record — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- SpaceX's Crew-13 launched four astronauts — Jessica Watkins, Luke Delaney, Joshua Kutryk, and Russian Sergey Teteryatnikov — from Cape Canaveral at 11:10am ET, docking at the ISS 7 hours 55 minutes later, the fastest US spacecraft trip to the outpost and a sharp cut from the prior 30+ hour US transit.
- Jessica Watkins, a geologist who worked on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity a decade ago, became the first Black woman to command a crew to orbit; the launch marks her second ISS stay after a 2022 mission, and she radioed 'Thanks for an amazing ride' after liftoff.
- The launch had been delayed three weeks to repair a Dragon capsule fuel leak; the crew's 'Crew-13' mission patch and 'Lucky 13' Tesla plates explicitly nod to the Apollo 13 motto, and they carried a crocheted golden dragon named Lucky with a four-leaf clover.
- Joshua Kutryk of the Royal Canadian Air Force will become a father for the third time while on station — his wife Heather is due in late November — and NASA manager Dana Weigel said the agency will keep him looped in, citing a 2004 precedent when astronaut Mike Fincke was radio-linked to his wife's delivery room from orbit.
- Three hours after Crew-13 lifted off, SpaceX launched a separate Falcon 9 from California carrying more than 100 mini satellites, and a third Falcon was set to fly that night from Florida with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.
- The mission is SpaceX's 13th crew rotation for NASA (excluding the 2020 Demo-2 test), and the newcomers — retired Marine Delaney, Kutryk, and former submariner Teteryatnikov — will replace four astronauts who have lived aboard the ISS since February for a six-month stay.
Why it matters: The 7-hour-55-minute trip cuts US crew transit to the ISS from over 30 hours, giving NASA's commercial crew program faster rotations. The same day, SpaceX also launched a Falcon carrying 100+ satellites and prepped another with a classified NRO payload, showing human and uncrewed missions now fly in the same 24-hour window.
Ask SkimNews
