NASA reported on Sept. 28, 2026, that the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft for the Crew-13 mission rolled out to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida the previous day, Sunday, Sept. 27. Teams raised the rocket to vertical position at Space Launch Complex 40, where it was to await liftoff no earlier than 11:10 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 1. At the pad, rocket and ground systems teams conducted an integrated static fire of the Falcon 9, followed by detailed data reviews by operations teams.

The mission was planned to carry NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov to the International Space Station for a long-duration mission, conducting scientific research aboard the orbiting laboratory.

According to the report, the flight would be the first spaceflight for Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov, and the second for Watkins, who would become the first NASA astronaut to launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft twice.