NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 Astronaut Arrival - 4K

Crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov arrive Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, at the Shuttle Landing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Crew-13 mission is slated to launch to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft atop company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:10 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 1.

What is said in the film

We think about the challenges, come up with the technologies and push the bounds of the science for the more ways that we can send humans into space, the better it is for our country and for the planet. Ready to get to work? What an amazing view from the International Space Station. Wow. Look at them go.

Spaceflight is a beautiful symbol of humanity. America has launched. Reach for these lofty goals. Work hard and look what you can accomplish. And splashdown.

The rest of the. Promised on launch. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. As we welcome the crew of NASA's Space Crew 13 mission, NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua and Roscosmos post cosmonaut Sergei arrived to the Space Coast just moments ago. As we continue the countdown for their launch to the International Space Station, scheduled for Thursday, October 1st.

This is the crew's final media opportunity ahead of launch. So before we open it up for questions from the media, I will hand it over to Commander Watkins for some opening remarks. All right. Thank you so much. And thank you all for being here to to greet us on this beautiful floor today.

We are so excited to be here. We are just had an amazing flight over. It is just so exciting to be here and to be back here for me in such a special, historic place and be able to to start our journey to the International Space Station. We had the pleasure of being able to fly over our pad and get to check that out. Looks absolutely beautiful and can't wait to see the vehicle up there.

You know, coming here. Arriving here today for us as a crew represents both kind of the culmination and the beginning of a journey for us. We've been training together as a crew for for over a year now. So it is the culmination of all of that, that work and effort. And we're so grateful to the teams of experts around the world that have gotten us prepared and ready for this, but is also the beginning.

We are excited. We are ready to fly. We were ready to join the expedition 75 crew on board the International Space Station. We know we've got a busy increment of of science and maintenance both inside and outside the station, and outreach as well, of course. So we are excited to hit the ground running when we get up there.

So thank you so much for being here today, and we are excited to take your questions. All right. With that, we will go ahead and open up for questions. You can line up in front of the microphone over there. And when you get to the mic, please state your name and affiliation to whom your question is addressed and try to limit to one question.

Hello Emmanuel Uni with Spectrum News. This question is for Luke Delaney. We spoke a little while ago and I just want to know, how does it feel that your hometown is a mere 50 miles away and you're about to launch? So many people have launched before to the ES has a field to be so close to home, but knowing you're going into space for the next couple of months. Thanks for the question.

You know, it feels great. It might just be the weather, but I think it actually is just because coming here in Kennedy, coming back to Florida, it's definitely near and dear to my heart. I did grow up pretty close to here. I watched I got to watch space shuttle launches, and now I'm going to get to see from a little bit different perspective, I think in the coming days. So truly excited to be here, truly thankful for all the teams that have made it happen.

And just a shout out to our aircraft operations folks today that got us the jets and everything together and made it work out. Perfect flight over here today. So yeah, really excited to be back in Florida. I can't space up close. Congratulations to all of you.

Thank you for for your your work. I'm a scientist. I'd like to know maybe from each of you. What is the most interesting or 1 or 2 most interesting science experiments that you'll be conducting to your during your expedition? Thank you.

Thank you for the question. I think we're all looking forward to doing science. I grew up as an operator, as a test pilot. Science is sort of new to me, but it's been really enlightening, really fun, frankly, to learn how to do some of this stuff. I'm looking forward to doing a number of experiments.

Of course, we're flying several for the Canadian Space Agency that I'm happy to work with. We have some. We have Astro Fit as an example. This is one that looks at taking care of the human astronaut part of this puzzle on longer duration flights and flights into deeper space. Someday that we hope to do so.

That one, of course, is close to my heart. I'll also be involved with a European Space Agency experiment, in their case, helping to prove out and commission a new exercise device, one that they could potentially someday be using on the moon. So those are a couple that are specific to me and that I really look forward to doing. But of course, science is a big part of our job, a big part of the reason we're here, and a big part of the reason why we're looking forward to blasting off, hopefully in a couple of days. Thank you.

Hi, Will Robinson Smith with Spaceflight Now. It's good to see you all again. Question for Commander Watkins. This flight was originally planning to take place a couple of weeks ago, but needed to do some additional work on the Dragon vehicle. Can you update us on both how that work has been going?

What? You've been Captain Lupine, I'm sure as the dragon's been progressing towards launch as soon as Thursday. And how you as the crew have been spending that additional time on earth. Thanks. Absolutely.

Thank you for the question. And you're right, we did have originally a different launch date, but we are, first of all, so grateful to the teams on the ground, the SpaceX team here at the Cape who were able to identify the issue with the vehicle on the ground with time to address it, and then for the teams that were able to identify the the most appropriate, safest path forward to to to fix the issue. And so we were grateful for for that time. For us with that meant being back at home before we were in quarantine meant that we just had more time to get in a few extra little bits of training. If you can imagine, even just some of the latest and greatest, latest and greatest on some of the EVAs that we might perform, getting to put some hands, extra hands on some of that hardware.

So really taking advantage of that extra time to make sure that we're absolutely as prepared as possible while the ground teams are working so hard to make sure the vehicle is prepared and ready as well. I'm Jonathan Siri with Fox News. Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us. This question fur is for whoever would like to speak about the manual piloting study. How does it work and what do you hope to learn?

Yeah, thanks for the question. I think it's a really interesting approach to how we're going to potentially integrate that in future vehicles for lunar lunar operations and beyond looking at how quickly we adapt in a new environment, microgravity, to using some of the systems, the human vehicle interface aspects, trying to really noodle down what is the most important pieces of those that we're going to be referencing for different cuing and different response times? I think it's going to be interesting for me, being a first time flier, just to see how quick in that adaptation period I make gains, or the learning curve is with some of those interfaces. And just what kind of feedback can I give to potentially improve upon those vehicle interfaces for future missions? Hey there, I'm Greg Diesel.

Walk with her sky. And my question similar to Ken's is for any of you. If you could design or run your own experiment in microgravity, what would it be? That's a tough one. You've stumped us.

We all all kind of thinking back there. I will start off by saying that we are grateful that we are not the ones who come up with the experiments. It really is is quite a pleasure and a privilege to be able to be the kind of hands, eyes and ears of scientists and engineers on the ground who it is their life's life's work to invest in creating and executing these experiments. And we are just lucky to be able to be the operator to actually execute that work. And so we would, you know, never kind of step into their shoes necessarily.

But for me personally, as a geologist, I am super excited about using the ES as a platform for making observations of the Earth and kind of what we can do with that, what we can learn from that process as we take that to the moon and use our remote observations of the moon to help us understand what to expect when we when we're able to set foot. So that is one, one kind of a scientific experiment that I would be interested in on, on board. Hello, this is Kingston with Max. Q my question is for the whole crew, and what are some personal items that you're going to take with you on your mission? Hello, my name is I'm from Russia.

I grew up with you, some book with history of my place and my country and some music for me. It will be relaxed. Thank you. Hi, I'm Rohan and I'm from India, which is four times the size of US and UK put together. So we get very excited when you when you guys go to space.

My first question to for Jessica is you almost spent 170 days in 2022. What is that you miss from that space mission, which you would want to enjoy and experience in this? And second for Joshua, Canada is of course partnering in this slide how excited you are to to be in this mission. Yeah, I'll answer the first part of your question really fast. Yes, it is such an honor and a privilege to be able to go back to the International Space Station.

You know, it is definitely not something it is kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity that I'm getting the opportunity to do twice. So it's pretty incredible. You know, for me, one of the things I'm looking forward to doing this time around is getting to experience the ES with this particular with this particular crew, with, with, with Josh, Luke, Sergei and then with our expedition 75 crewmates as well. I'm getting to to see ISIS for the first time through their eyes. I'm really excited about that.

And, and all of the science experiments, which are all new and different as well, that we'll get to participate in. So I'm really excited about what we're able to do. I'll let Josh answer. Yeah, I like the question. Thanks for it.

I'd start by saying, as you point out, we're all very excited to do this. Of course, we've dreamt of going to space since we were kids. I always tell people that's a there's a lot of layers to that. I'm excited to do the science. I'm excited to look at the earth, but I'm also excited to do it as a Canadian.

And as you say, as part of this, this relationship and partnership that we have, I think that's very special. Today has been a day of of reflecting on gratitude, frankly. I mean, I've flown into the Cape probably a hundred times, but today is just so special to leave Houston. You see all the people there, all the family there, you feel the support all the way across. You see the crowds of people here, you really feel that support.

And so when you talk about being grateful for for everything that we have, I mean, we the crew, we feel like some of the luckiest people in the world. I am grateful, though, on your question to NASA's leadership and to our partnership that we share with the Canadian Space Agency. It's something very important to me personally, but very important to our two countries. It's the reason I'm here. And yeah, I just couldn't be more excited, grateful, thrilled to be doing it as a Canadian astronaut within NASA.

Thank you. Marc, with talking SpaceX question for what do you expect some of your typical workday tasks will be on orbit? I think my typical day on to space William. In all situation various exploitation equipment and study a new knowledge for my country. Thank you.

Mike Hansen with West two news. This is for anyone knowing that most of the science on this mission is focused on the human effects space has on the body, and understanding what it will take for deep space missions. I wonder if you feel a sense of gravity for this, knowing that Artemis is just around the corner, and if it gives you a sense of pride knowing that you're part of returning to the moon in a sense. Yeah, it definitely puts things in perspective for me. When I think about all the human and physiological aspects, everybody's different.

Everybody's body is different. We're still trying to characterize a lot of things, but yeah, it makes it impresses upon me really heavily in terms of what we're doing on station and just how meaningful it is for what we're going to do beyond low-Earth orbit. I'm excited, maybe not as excited for all the blood drives, but I'm excited to be donating some blood up there and getting these changes in the body characterize so we can get the appropriate mitigations and countermeasures in place. Huge step. And it's hugely important for what we're going to be doing in the years to come.

Well, that's our country international. It's true that dragon with wings. It's an honor for Apollo 13 program. Yes. So your question is about if there are links in our patch to the Apollo 13 program.

Yes, absolutely. We took a lot of inspiration from the Apollo 13 crew as crew 13. We have a couple of nods in terms of the just the Roman numerals, the golden color, the dragon looking upward. We really wanted to honor their legacy, honor their resilience and their grit and bring a little bit of that with us on our crew. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we wouldn't be here without the incredible history of folks who have come through this place to to launch into space and push the bounds of what humans are capable of.

So we are honored to be a part of a small part of that legacy. Hi, Dawn for CBC, a question for Josh. Josh, you were originally supposed to fly on the Starliner. Now you're going up on the Dragon. Can you elaborate how the training was different for each of those spacecraft?

Hi, Don. It's good to see you again. Do you go home in between, or do you just live here? Yeah. For me, you're right.

I mean, it has been maybe a nontraditional path. I started with an assignment to Starliner, and now we're here. I would say that on the personal level, it's been nothing but wonderful in hindsight. I've gone to do two training programs, learn about two different spacecraft, two ways of doing this very difficult task of getting to lower orbit and back. So I feel grateful for that opportunity and and grateful for the fact that we're here ready to go now on Dragon.

I mean, the training at some point is the same because you have to you have to learn to do the same thing, manage emergencies, understand the orbital mechanics that you go through to to get there, the docking systems, you know, there's similarities between all of that. But I would tell you, without going into too much detail, that part of this experience has also been getting sort of a first row seat into the differences between the approaches taken and the companies. I don't know that there's a right way or a wrong way, but certainly when it comes to some aspects of training, there have been differences between the two. I think that speaks probably to one of the reasons we set the program up like this in the first place. We have two very capable vehicles, two different but very capable approaches to this same important task of getting humans into lower orbit and back.

And I think that that's going to set the United States and its partners up really well for the future. But good question. Thanks. Good to see you. It looks like that was our final question.

So as a reminder, you can tune in to the prelaunch news conference on Wednesday, September 30th at 2:30 p. m. Eastern time on NASA's YouTube channel and X accounts. And you can also follow along with crew 13 mission updates at NASA gov. Crew again, crew 13 is scheduled to launch no than Thursday, October 1st at 11:10 a.

m. Eastern Time, with live NASA coverage beginning at 9:20 a. m. and till then, thank you and go crew 13.

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