Crew-13 mission reaches the International Space Station in record time

On October 1, 2026, the SpaceX Crew-13 mission launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carried by a Falcon 9 rocket. The four-member crew, consisting of Americans Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Joshua Kutryk, and Russian Sergey Teteryatnikov, successfully arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) in just 7 hours and 55 minutes. This journey set a new speed record for an American crewed spacecraft, significantly outperforming the previous February mission, which required over 30 hours to reach the orbiting laboratory.

The mission, originally scheduled for mid-September, was delayed to allow for the replacement of a propulsion system valve on the Dragon capsule. The crew is scheduled to remain on the ISS for a six-month research mission. Following their arrival, the outgoing crew members—Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot, and Andrey Fedyayev—will stay on the station for a few more days before returning to Earth. While the Crew-13 transit is a record for the U.S., the absolute time record for reaching the ISS remains with a Russian Soyuz flight from October 2020.