NASA and SpaceX are targeting 11:10 a.m. EDT on Thursday, October 1, for the launch of Crew-13 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, with a Crew Dragon scheduled to reach the International Space Station less than nine hours later. NASA’s current schedule puts docking at about 7 p.m. EDT, a transit of 7 hours and 50 minutes that the agency describes as the fastest U.S. crewed trip to the station.
Four people will fly: NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins, the spacecraft commander, and Luke Delaney, the pilot; Joshua Kutryk of the Canadian Space Agency; and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, both mission specialists.
A launch at 11:10 a.m. EDT and a docking before nightfall
The timeline NASA published for coverage begins with launch coverage at 9:20 a.m. EDT, followed by a post-launch news conference at 12:45 p.m., arrival coverage at 5:20 p.m. and the opening of the hatch and welcome remarks at 8:45 p.m. Docking is planned at the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module, and the crew is expected to become members of Expedition 75 once the hatch opens. The schedule leaves little slack: arrival coverage begins about an hour and forty minutes before docking, and the welcome remarks follow the same evening, so everything from liftoff to hatch opening is planned inside a single working day of roughly ten hours.
The docking time has shifted on paper. In its September 22 preview, NASA said Crew-13 was expected to arrive in less than nine hours, with docking “planned for about 8 p.m.” The later schedule pulls that to about 7 p.m. Either figure keeps the trip under nine hours, and a Space.com timeline lists the same 7 p.m. docking and the same 8:45 p.m. hatch opening, which puts the first handshake between the two crews about an hour and three-quarters after the capsule latches on. NASASpaceflight.com describes the plan as the shortest docking time for any Crew Dragon flight, ahead of Crew-11’s earlier mark of just under 15 hours.
Crew Dragon Grace, Falcon 9 and a four-person crew
The vehicle is the Crew Dragon capsule named Grace, designated C213, which flew before on the commercial Ax-4 mission and makes this its second trip to orbit, riding a Falcon 9 first-stage booster that NASASpaceflight.com reports is making its third flight. Watkins is the only member of the crew on a second spaceflight, so the commander’s experience sits alongside three first-time flyers: Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov. NASA’s own crew list gives the roles, and the mix is typical of long-duration rotations, in which one veteran leads a crew of newcomers on the way up.
According to NASA’s September 30 station blog, the crew already aboard is made up of Jessica Meir, who commands the station, with Anil Menon, Jack Hathaway, ESA’s Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Andrey Fedyaev, Anna Kikina and Pyotr Dubrov. On Wednesday, September 30, they spent the day reorganizing cargo and staging supplies for the newcomers while continuing research on fitness equipment, simulated lunar landings and how microgravity affects blood pressure and fluid distribution. Those studies go on around the arrival rather than pausing for it. The outgoing Crew-12 mission is scheduled to return no earlier than Monday, October 5, after the handover, which leaves a few days in which the two crews overlap aboard the station.
Weather, a leak that delayed the flight and the October 2 backup
Launch was originally set for September 12. NASASpaceflight.com reports that an oxidizer leak was found in Dragon’s propulsion system during routine pre-launch processing, which pushed the flight back by weeks; Space.com reports that the capsule was cleared after the propulsion concerns were resolved. The crew completed a dry dress rehearsal on September 29, and arrived in Florida on September 26 after quarantine at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Readiness looked firm on the eve of the flight. NASA’s Lori Glaze said that “right now, everything is ‘go,'” in Space.com’s report on the review, and all hardware was described as ready for an on-time launch. Weather is the open variable, with forecasts quoted at 55 to 60 percent favorable for the primary window. The two reports quote slightly different odds, 55 percent in one and 60 percent in the other, and both were published before the final forecast update on launch morning, so the figure may have moved by the time the countdown reaches its last hour.
If conditions block the attempt, the backup opportunity is Friday, October 2, at 10:47 a.m. EDT.
NASA and SpaceX have the next fixed time: 11:10 a.m. EDT on Thursday, with the docking at Harmony scheduled for about 7 p.m. that evening.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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