Jessica Watkins leads SpaceX Crew-13 on fastest ISS trip yet
Four astronauts blasted off on Thursday on a mission to the International Space Station that is set to last until spring, with one of them expected to become a father while in orbit. SpaceX launched the crew for NASA after a three-week delay to fix a fuel leak in the capsule.
The mission is expected to reach the space station in about eight hours, making it the fastest crew trip there yet for Elon Musk's company. The team is led by NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, who became the first Black woman to command a crew to orbit.
Watkins, a geologist who worked with NASA's Curiosity Mars rover a decade ago, is making her second trip to the space station after a long stay there in 2022. The other three on board are first-time space travellers: NASA's Luke Delaney, a retired Marine; Canada's Joshua Kutryk, a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force; and Russia's Sergey Teteryatnikov, a former submariner. They are due to replace four astronauts who have been aboard the orbiting laboratory since February.
"We feel like some of the luckiest people in the world," Kutryk said before the launch.
This was SpaceX's 13th crew launch for NASA, not including the 2020 test flight. The crew has embraced the Crew-13 name, with their mission patch paying tribute to Apollo 13, the 1970 Moon mission that ended with the astronauts returning safely after a major crisis. "We really wanted to honour their legacy, honour their resilience and their grit, and bring a little bit of that with us," Watkins said. She and her crewmates travelled to the launch pad in black Teslas with number plates reading "Lucky 13".
Kutryk is set to become the fourth man to become a father while orbiting Earth. His wife, Heather, is due to give birth to their third child in late November. The Canadian Space Agency has said the family will be given full support when the baby arrives. "A lot of life-changing things can happen over six months," NASA manager Dana Weigel said on the eve of the launch, adding that the agency would do its best to keep Kutryk connected with his family.
NASA has dealt with similar moments before. In 2004, it arranged a radio link between space station astronaut Mike Fincke and his wife's delivery room during the birth of their daughter. Five years later, Randy Bresnik, who is set to command next year's Artemis III mission, called his wife's hospital from orbit. In 1991, Austrian astronaut Franz Viehbock was told a day after launch that his daughter had been born a few hours after he left for the Soviet Union's Mir space station.
The mission brings together a historic command, a quick trip to the International Space Station and a personal milestone for one of the crew, as the four astronauts begin a six-month stay in orbit.
