NASA launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Thursday aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, after a delay of about three weeks caused by a leak on the spacecraft. The Crew-13 mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:10 a.m. EDT and is due to support a six-month science expedition on the orbiting laboratory.
The crew comprises NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Watkins is making her second trip to the station, while Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov are on their first spaceflight. NASA planned docking for around 7 p.m. EDT, but the spacecraft reached the station after about 7 hours 55 minutes, a pace described as a record for a US crewed flight.
Crew-13 is replacing the previous station team, including four members of Crew-12, and will join Expedition 75 for work focused on research, technology demonstrations and maintenance aboard the ISS. NASA had initially set the mission for a later date before moving it forward to increase the cadence of US crew rotation flights under its Commercial Crew programme.