SpaceX’s Crew-13 mission reached the International Space Station in 7 hours and 55 minutes after lifting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, setting a new U.S. record for launch-to-docking time at the orbiting outpost. The Dragon capsule docked with the station’s Harmony module early on Friday, carrying NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov.
NASA gave the docking time as 1:05 a.m. MESZ, while live mission coverage placed the arrival at 7:05 p.m. EDT on Thursday. The flight is expected to keep the four-member crew on the station for about six months, joining ongoing research and maintenance work aboard the laboratory.
The faster-than-usual trip was driven by the orbital alignment between the launch site and the station rather than any new spacecraft capability. Previous U.S. crew missions to the ISS have taken more than 30 hours, making the Crew-13 flight an operational improvement in rendezvous timing rather than a change in hardware.