NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 is scheduled to launch no earlier than 11:10 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 1, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, according to a mission overview published Sept. 28. NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney will serve as commander and pilot, with CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov as mission specialists. The four will join the station's Expedition 75 crew for a long-duration mission.

During the mission, the crew is expected to conduct experiments on human stem-cell derived tissues aimed at improving disease modeling and pharmaceutical testing, along with research on crop production and blood flow abnormalities in space. They will also test diagnostic medical equipment for monitoring crew health. The flight is the 13th crew rotation mission with SpaceX under NASA's Commercial Crew Office, and the crew will travel aboard a Dragon spacecraft named Grace, which previously supported Axiom Mission 4 in summer 2025.

Watkins, selected as an astronaut in 2017, previously spent 170 days in space during Expeditions 67/68 in 2022 and will be the first NASA astronaut to launch twice aboard a Dragon. Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov are making their first spaceflights. Crew-13 will replace Crew-12 following a brief handover, and is expected to welcome two resupply missions later in the year.