A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon crew spacecraft lifted off at 11:10 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, NASA reported. Aboard were NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov.

The crew began an approximately 7-hour, 50-minute journey to the International Space Station. According to the agency, the rocket's first stage was expected to separate from the second stage soon after launch and attempt a landing at SpaceX's Landing Zone 40 at Cape Canaveral.

At the time of liftoff, NASA said the station was orbiting at 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 kilometers per hour) about 263 miles over Earth, northwest of Havana, Cuba, and would pass directly over NASA's Kennedy Space Center about 1 minute, 37 seconds after launch.