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SpaceX Crew-13 Arrives at ISS in Record Time
· Confirmed
In Short: SpaceX's Crew-13 mission reached the International Space Station in record time, marking a successful rotation of astronauts.
SpaceX's Crew-13 mission arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday evening, setting a record for the fastest journey to the orbiting laboratory.
Crew-13 includes NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov.
The crew will take over from Crew-12, who have been conducting research on pneumonia-causing bacteria, blood flow in space, and the generation of intravenous fluids.
Crew-12's Commander Jessica Meir will hand over command of the ISS to Roscosmos cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov, whose crew arrived in July.
NASA's Commercial Crew Program, a partnership with private space companies like SpaceX, facilitated this mission.
The Crew-12 team will return to Earth, with initial surveys of their spacecraft and equipment indicating a successful mission.
NASA's Roman Space Telescope, launched separately, has achieved nearly 30% better optical performance than required, promising detailed views of the universe.
The telescope's performance was excellent even before final adjustments, thanks to meticulous ground testing.
Meanwhile, SpaceX and NASA are preparing for the return of Crew-12 and the launch of Crew-13, ensuring a smooth transition of responsibilities.
The ISS continues to serve as a platform for scientific research aimed at improving life on Earth.
Rescue teams are also responding to unrelated incidents, such as a medical facility and metro station hit by missiles in Ukraine, and a drone attack on Saudi Arabia.
What's confirmed
- NASA and SpaceX's Crew-13 mission reached the International Space Station Thursday evening in record time.
- The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four-member crew, was launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, along Florida’s Atlantic Coast.
What's still developing
- “Calibrating an instrument is like tuning a piano or guitar before a concert,” said Maxime Rizzo, a Wide Field Instrument systems engineer at NASA Goddard.
- “Our ground testing couldn’t exactly reproduce the environment Roman would experience in space, such as the absence of gravity,” Bolcar said.
- “The telescope’s performance was excellent even before we began adjusting the alignment of all the mirrors and other optics, thanks to exceptional preparatory work done on the ground prior to launch,” said Matthew Bolcar, Roman’s optical systems lead at NASA Goddard.
- A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket transformed the early morning sky into a spectacular display of light on October 13, 2026.
- Crew-13 carries four astronauts to the International Space Station for a six-month science mission. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons ) NASA launched their latest flight to the International Space Station out of Cape Canaveral, Florida on Oct. 1.
- Fla. – SpaceX launched its Bandwagon-5 mission aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday.
- Ukraine did not confirm those targets but said that a medical facility had been hit in the capital, as well as one of the city's metro stations, according to a post by the Kyiv City Military Administration on Telegram.
- Rescue teams from the Darazinda station reached the scene and began relief operations, providing medical assistance to the wounded and taking them to hospital, the service said.
- Autonomous docking with the space-facing port of the ISS Harmony module is scheduled for Thursday SpaceX launched a Dragon CRS-35 cargo mission for NASA to the International Space Station on Tuesday.
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- The UAE Foreign Ministry said the drone attack constituted "a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of Saudi Arabia and a threat to its security and stability."
- Reporting by Daniel Flynn and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, and Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk; writing by Anna Pruchnicka; editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Gareth Jones and Ron Popeski Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab US President Donald Trump said artificial intelligence will be a "big topic of discussion" when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, but said both leaders wanted to leave things as they are.