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Three. Two. One. Ignition and liftoff! Go, Falcon, go, Dragon and go, Crew 13. Liftoff of Crew 13, carried by Dragon Grace to the International Space Station. Copy one. Alpha Chamber. Pressures are normal. All nine Merlin engines on the first stage at maximum thrust of 1.7 million pounds.
Press Secretary. We're here following today's launch of NASA's SpaceX Crew 13 mission to the International Space Station. At 11:10 a.m. Eastern Time, NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Ratnikov lifted off aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and are now on their way to the ISS. Joining us today to discuss the launch and the mission ahead are NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, Doctor Lori Glaze, associate administrator for NASA's Human Space Flight Mission Directorate, Dana Wygal, manager of NASA's Low Earth Orbit program, Matthew Caron, director of astronauts, life sciences and space medicine for the Canadian Space Agency, and Juliana Simon, director of NASA Science and Dragon programs at SpaceX. Before we throw it to opening remarks, we want to play a clip from the crew on orbit talking about their zero gravity indicator named Lucky.
Our Crew 13 zero-g indicator is a golden dragon named Lucky. She was hand crocheted by my talented sister-in-law to represent the dragon at the center of our crew patch, which honors the brave and resilient legacy of Apollo 13, on which we stand. Around Lucky's neck is a four-leaf clover, a nod to the steadfast SpaceX team that has picked up and led the way to low-Earth orbit for the past six years. And of course, as Crew 13 in capsule 213, we figured it wouldn't hurt to bring a little of our own luck just in case. But clearly, we don't need it. From our vantage point, Crew 13 consists of four of the luckiest humans on or off planet Earth, and we're so grateful for the opportunity to explore the unknown for the benefit of humanity.
And with that, I'll turn it over to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.
Absolutely wonderful words. Wonderful words. Thanks, George. Good afternoon, everyone. We are here at Kennedy Space Center after another incredible launch. So at 11:10 a.m. Eastern Time, Crew 13 successfully launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station here in Florida. So Jessica, Luke, Josh, and Sergey are safely in orbit. They are out of their suits at this time. And because of the short phasing period, the crew are going to have an opportunity to rest up a little bit before rendezvousing with the International Space Station. On orbit, checkouts are complete and Dragon is healthy. It was an incredible launch. I'd like to thank all of those who contribute to it, right from the top with our president, President Trump, all the way through congressional leadership. Like Congressman Haridopolos was here for the launch. We had representatives from the CSA, the entire NASA workforce that goes into making a mission like this possible. Of course, our commercial crew partner, SpaceX, Space Force, again, everyone that contributed today. I'd also like to especially thank the crews' families that they've left behind in service to their nation, to science, and really for the benefit of all humankind. It was not that long ago that the shuttle program ended and America entered a dark period. For nearly a decade, we could not launch our own astronauts from U.S. soil. Then, during President Trump's first term, we had Demo-2, which returned human spaceflight to the Space Coast, where it belongs. And just six years later, here we are with Crew 13 already underway. And I said earlier today that missions like this have become so reliable that they can almost feel routine, but they are not. Putting human beings on top of a rocket and accelerating them to 17,500 mph, rendezvousing with a space station, and then bringing them home safely many, many months later will never be routine. These are demanding missions. They take dedication, extreme expertise, and competence across thousands of people from NASA, the Space Force, and again, our industry partners like SpaceX to pull them off very successfully. But building that capability, the experience, and confidence to do it repeatedly, to make it look near routine, is exactly what we're collectively striving to achieve now because of the bravery of this incredible crew and our amazing astronaut corps. There will be children watching today who will never know a time when America could not launch its own astronauts to space. They watched Artemis II travel around the moon. They watched Crew 13 today launch to space, and before long, they will watch astronauts return to the lunar surface to see the beginnings of a moon base take shape. To grow up in a country where there's a United States Space Academy, and someday tune in to watch their favorite astronauts set foot on a planet other than our own. Now, this crew will turn their attention in the hours ahead to rendezvous and docking, and then months of important work aboard the International Space Station that will benefit life here at home and help prepare future crews for their missions to the moon, Mars, and someday beyond. This is an absolute great start to Crew 13. We'll be watching very closely, cheering them on throughout their great expedition, and I will hand it over to our associate administrator of Human Space Flight Mission Directorate, Doctor Lori Glaze. Lori.
Thank you, Jared. Wow. What an amazing launch this morning. Beautiful. Absolutely picture perfect. It was spectacular and a real testament to the NASA, Space, Canadian Space Agency, and Roscosmos teams that make all this happen. It was fantastic. I wanted to say congratulations to our first-time fliers, to Luke, Josh, and Sergey. Pretty exciting for them. Now get their wings up in space. Awesome. I'll also note that today marks a historic moment for NASA astronauts. I know a few folks have flown on Dragon more than once. A couple of people have done it twice, but this will be the first time that a NASA astronaut has flown on the SpaceX Dragon twice. And that'll be Jesse. This is Jessica's second time, so that's pretty exciting. She also flew on Crew-4. So, you know, our teams are continuing to monitor Dragon during the uphill climb towards the space station, with docking expected this evening around seven plus or minus. So we'll have to stay tuned on our more detailed information on that. They're on a record-setting pace, aiming to arrive at station faster than any U.S. spacecraft has done to date. And just a reminder of how we continue to refine spacecraft performance and mission operations. And of course, getting a little bit of a help from orbital dynamics on this particular setup, this flight. We look forward to welcoming our crew on board the station tonight. They'll settle in very quickly and then help prepare to bring Crew 12 home as they wrap up their seven-month mission. So thank you again for coming out today. Really glad to see you all. And over to Dana.
Thank you, Lori. Hey, thank you all for being here today and for your interest in the Crew 13 mission. And a huge thank you and congratulations to the SpaceX and NASA teams who did a tremendous amount of work to get to the successful launch today. With Crew 13 launched today, they're docking to the Node 2 forward port around 7 p.m. As you've heard, weather did cooperate. It was a little close there. Ascent looked good the whole time. We had low winds, low seas. We had an anvil cloud that was hanging over the pad and cleared right kind of at the last part of the count there. So that was great. Probably the best weather we could ask for in the middle of hurricane season in Florida. So no complaints there. It was a really, really clean count, both on the rocket side and the Dragon side. No one was really working any issues. It was actually quieter than I've ever heard before. Dragon spacecraft is in great shape. We had nominal separation, orbital insertion. We completed two burns, nose cone opened. All the systems are up and running and look healthy. Falcon 9 also during ascent, great performance, and as you all saw, a fantastic landing. Crew is doing great on board. When they arrive on station, they're going to be pretty busy from the get-go. They've got a very short handover with Crew 12, just a few days. They'll do all of the typical safety and emergency things. We always do get familiar with where the emergency equipment is. They'll do a little bit of familiarization with things like exercise equipment, the toilet, and then they're going to pack up last-minute critical payloads that are returning on Crew 12. Crew 12's earliest planned undock is October 5th. We'll start looking at weather for that on Saturday. So we'll work over the weekend. We'll hold a Dragon mission management team and take a look at that and see if we're clear to press with that undock. In terms of the Crew 12 spacecraft on board, we have done initial checkouts in great shape. We also finished all of the external surveys and Dragon looks great. During Crew 13's stay on board, they're going to do a lot of research. I have just a couple things to highlight for you. I think one of the more interesting ones is they'll do some research with human stem cell-derived tissues. It's got a lot of disease modeling and pharmaceutical applications. And the hope with, I'd say, this general field of research is that we can target cures, whether it's pharmaceutical treatments or figuring out how a disease actually really activates, what we can target treatments for things like heart disease, ALS, Parkinson's. So very exciting field and a lot of breakthroughs in that area. We'll also continue our human research. One of the focus areas for this mission is in looking at some of the unique aspects of blood flow in a microgravity environment and monitoring our crew members' health and looking for signs of blood clots, which, as you all know, is a risk with human spaceflight long duration. They'll also do some plant growth experiments. A lot of the ones we've done in the past have had unique one-time-use kind of grow-out pads, and then we have to get rid of them. But what we really want to do is grow, harvest, regrow, and get more to a Moon or Mars-type application. So we've got a new experiment flying that allows the crew to really do that kind of in a more operational sense. So we're looking forward to that. We're going to keep this crew very busy. On the heels of this crew exchange, we've got the SpaceX 35 mission planned to launch October 13th. So coming up very quickly, that is bringing up our last set of upgraded solar arrays, the iROSA arrays, during that mission. In addition to critical science, the crew will also do a couple spacewalks to install those arrays. We also have a Roscosmos Progress cargo mission in November. And then towards the very end of the year, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus mission. So very, very busy time. It's always busy in low-Earth orbit. I like it that way. That's great. Again, I want to extend my thanks to SpaceX, to our partners, to CSA, and our NASA LEO team for their dedication, vigilance, and teamwork in safely flying this Crew 13 mission. And with that, I will hand it over to Matthew.
Thanks, Dana. Congratulations to everyone on a spectacular launch. Wow. It was amazing to see that Falcon 9 soar into the sky. And on a personal note, it's the first time I saw the first stage return to the launch site, and it was truly impressive. We had folks watching the launch from the Canadian Space Agency, in the streets of downtown Ottawa, and in watch parties throughout Canada. So really an exciting time for us, and particularly so because it represents the first time that a Canadian Space Agency astronaut takes part in NASA's Commercial Crew program. So really, we're venturing into new grounds now. We're proud of Josh Kutryk and the hard work that he's put into getting to this point. Josh and his Crew 13 crewmates have put a lot of training and a lot of long hours. And now the day has finally arrived where they can put that into practice. So that's fantastic. Just allow me just a couple of words in French. Josh Kutryk participera à des activités d'étude sur la santé à bord de la Station spatiale internationale. Des démonstrations techniques également sur la santé des astronautes. So just to paraphrase here, the Canadian studies that will be carried out during this mission will apparently focus on health in space, investigating the effects of microgravity on the human body and how to lessen these effects. These types of studies are particularly critical as we humans prepare to return to the moon and stay there for longer. And as Dana pointed out, this work can also inform health studies and the technology tested on the ISS, and there can also be proved useful to remote communities, for instance, such as in northern Canada, and provide them with new diagnostic techniques that can improve their lives. And that's why the ISS is and remains important. This orbiting laboratory provides a unique environment for astronauts to test, study, and really push the boundaries of space exploration. In conclusion, the International Space Station remains a powerful symbol of how collaboration and teamwork has remarkable benefits for Earth and for space. So we're looking forward to what Crew 13 will accomplish over the coming months. Thank you to our partners. Merci, and thank you to the teams at the Canadian Space Agency, at NASA, at SpaceX for supporting this mission, and to all those across Canada and around the world who follow along. So thank you very much. And with this, I'll pass the floor to Giuliana.
Thank you. Thank you very much. I am excited to be here today to celebrate a successful Crew 13 launch. It's always fun to launch a rocket, and it never gets old seeing the booster come back and seeing a launch. So very fun. We are especially excited about the fact that we have had, as I mentioned, some frequent fliers on this mission. We had Jessica, who has flown with Dragon before, and we're also really proud to support the first spaceflight for Josh, Luke, and Sergey. So really proud to enable that at SpaceX. This is our 21st human spaceflight mission and our 53rd Dragon mission to the International Space Station. So we've been busy. And it's an especially busy day for us at SpaceX today with our triple header. So we just completed the Crew 13 launch. And coming up here in a few hours, we have our Transporter 18 mission out of Vandenberg, where we'll be deploying 103 rideshare payloads. And later this evening here at the Cape, out of Launch Complex 39, we'll be launching Falcon Heavy to support the NRO L-97 launch, where those two side boosters will be coming back for that mission. So fun fact, we're actually using every single Falcon launch pad and landing pad at SpaceX today, assuming those all launch. So pretty fun. Pretty busy time. It's always fun to be busy. Speaking of being busy on the Dragon program, Dana covered a lot of this, but we're coming up here after the Crew 13 mission docks with the International Space Station. We have the return of the Crew 12 Dragon and its crew, and so we'll be targeting that next week pending weather. And we also are coming up, the CRS-35 cargo resupply mission is planned for a couple in two weeks, where we'll be supplying, resupplying the International Space Station. On behalf of everyone at SpaceX, we are incredibly proud and honored to support human spaceflight and the amazing science that happens on the International Space Station. And so with that, I just want to close by saying thank you to NASA and its partners for their support ahead of the mission. Go Crew 13, and thank you for flying SpaceX.
Thank you all. We'll now move into questions from the media. For those joining us by phone, please press star one to enter the question queue. And for those here in the room, please raise your hand and wait for a microphone to come to you. To help us get to as many questions as possible, please limit yourself to one question at a time, and let us know which of your participants you'd like to answer your question. We'll begin here in the room. Third row in the black.
Thank you very much, George. Big picture question for, sorry, Jonathan Serrie with Fox News. Big picture question for Jared, because you mentioned stepping on another planet, and each one of these missions brings us one step closer. What would you say is the biggest hurdle that we need to overcome to send humans to Mars? And what would you say is the biggest hurdle that we've already mastered?
Well, to work backwards from there, what we've mastered, we know we can keep human beings alive in this incredibly demanding environment for time frames that exceed transit to Mars. So that is probably one of the, for all the extraordinary accomplishments the International Space Station has given us over the last 26 years, I think being able to maintain that continuous human presence and all we've learned, you know, human physiology in that environment is very enabling for those missions. Now in terms of like the, how do we get there? I think there's a couple of things in motion right now. So as we prepare to return to the moon, you have two different commercial providers that have different approaches in order to get their spacecraft into that environment. And then at that point, I mean, the velocity differences are negligible. It's going to be about, you know, habitability to get there, landing, and then coming back. So I would say, as we watch SpaceX continue to have nice Starship missions like we saw earlier on flight 14, as we get into cryo prop transfer on orbit, and then we watch Blue Origin with their approach for on-orbit assembly, those will be important steps towards eventually undertaking missions to Mars. Now I'd say in parallel, this is an area that we've talked a lot about, is NASA continuing to make investments in fission-powered spacecraft? The idea that we could potentially work alongside industry to get crews to Mars and back without having to necessarily on-orbit refuel. That's going to be, I think that's absolutely NASA at its best when it is doing the near impossible. It doesn't have these kind of obvious business use cases, and working alongside industry to make the near impossible possible. So those are some of the areas that are in work right now.
Thank you. Next question. Front row in the red.
Faith Abubey with ABC News. With the ISS set to be decommissioned within the next three years, how important are these final missions, and what's the plan moving forward in terms of research and space?
Well. For anyone. Okay, Dana. Which one? Why don't you take it, Dana?
Okay. I was like, I wonder what Jared's going to say to this one. You know, I would say, okay, every mission is really, really important. What I find really fascinating is despite the fact that we've been doing research for so long, we continue to have these breakthroughs that kind of crack a door into these amazing fields. And so I want to see us maximize the use of any spacecraft, any research we're doing, but specifically for ISS, we have golden opportunities to really maximize what we can do, both for maximizing benefit for everyone here on Earth, but also for what we need for future follow-on missions. In terms of, I think your other question you were asking about duration and how long we fly. I think, you know, right now we're specific to the research. One of the other things that we are looking at, and I think we will really see kind of blossom, I hope, in low-Earth orbit, there are a lot of applications that we look at today on Space Station that I think are extensible to a number of other platforms, whether things that we learned, that we realized we can continue on the moon or uncrewed platforms or whatever follow-on destinations and platforms we have. So all of the work that we're doing today is applicable to, you know, continuation in the future.
I would just maybe add on it that I do think every mission is incredibly important. The last few years, especially. So to the extent that we can prioritize science and research that has high commercial potential, I think is very important. Space is still expensive. Now, you know, thanks to a lot of our partners like SpaceX, the cost to access orbit and crewed access orbit has come down meaningfully, but it's still rather expensive. And we are excited about a world where you could have lots of commercial space stations and lots of people living in and working in space. And I think in order for that, you know, that kind of concept to become reality, we have to figure out, you know, what is the economic potential that truly fuels this orbital economy right now. And up until now, I mean, as much as there's been commercial missions, the bulk have come from essentially the United States buying a lot of those missions and then working barter arrangements with international partners and such. And you want there to be more reasons than that, more reasons than sovereign nations just to put their astronauts in space. So I would say it's very high priority for the next three years to do everything we can to figure out what that is alongside industry and ignite that orbital economy so we can usher in the new era in LEO.
Very quick one: was the emergency escape slide meant to deploy at T-0? And for the more serious question, probably for Dana, I know the focus has been on Crew Dragon procurement, but what are the current plans going ahead for Cargo Dragon and for other cargo providers as we near the end of the ISS? And can we see some of those contracts coming out soon?
You sure? Sure. Yeah. So for those who don't know, we have an emergency crew egress system. Sometimes people call them chutes, that in the event of an issue or a bad day, the astronauts can have what might be the most fun slide you'd ever be on. We knew there's a chance that those chutes could deploy inadvertently after liftoff. The launch environment, as you can imagine, is a robust environment. But so we knew there was a chance that could happen. It happened. In this case, it's no harm, no foul, and we'll be going forward trying to make improvements such that they don't deploy again. But if they do, it's a non-issue. For the cargo vehicles, I incrementally procure those. So about two to three years in advance, depending upon if it's a reused vehicle or a vehicle that's disposable. And so right now, off the top of my head, I've got cargo, I've got a number of Dragon cargo flights that run all the way out to the end of '28. And I think my last engine that I have on contract right now is about '29. That's pretty normal for us in terms of buying incrementally as we go on. So we have a flight rate of two to two and a half Cargo Dragons per year, and the Northrop Grumman Cygnus every nine months-ish. So same flight rate.
Marcia Dunn, Associated Press. Juliana, eight hours is really fast. Is it possible you could beat that, get even faster? Or do you think this is really going to hold the record?
Okay, yeah, we got lucky this time. The space station was in an opportune spot in space, and the orbital mechanics, the physics of it all worked out for it to be the shortest launch to docking time we've had to date, under eight hours. That's not to say it couldn't happen again. And if we were to put Space Station in exactly the right spot for the right launch, it could be this or even shorter duration. This is close to the fastest it could be, though.
In terms of crew 12 undock timing, since we only have two docking ports, I have to free up the other port in order to bring up the SpaceX 35 mission, because that mission is carrying the solar arrays, and they have a lot of thermal constraints for when we can install them. They're basically beta constraints and big cutouts. I really have kind of a sweet spot for where I need to put that mission to get that done. And so that's why we decided to shorten the handover.
Thank you. Next, second row in gray.
Thank you. Pablo Fuentes with Radio Respeto. My question is for Dana. Did you change any protocol given the short time that it's going to take them to get there? Are there any new protocols they need to speed up things, or because now they have nine hours versus 34 to do basically the same amount of work?
When Dragon gets close to station, the protocols and the procedures look exactly like they do every time. So there's no change to any of that. What you see is just it takes a lot less time in some of those initial burns to get there. So close into station, it looks exactly the same. We've actually done handovers of this duration before. We've planned them. Sometimes, though, we've planned them, weather hasn't cooperated, and we've ended up with some bonus days. So the actual plan looks very similar to some of what we've done for some of our other shorter handovers.
Thanks. Irene Klotz with Aviation Week for Juliana. Is SpaceX still in the process of certifying Dragon for 15 flights apiece? And if so, where are you in that? Thanks.
Yes, we are very proud to be pushing the envelope of reusability and really setting the way that the industry thinks about reusability and how we do that. We at SpaceX have demonstrated the 15x15 flight certification internally and are still partnering with NASA on having the NASA teams approve that for their missions. So we're midway through that, and it's going really well so far.
Next question. Third row in white.
Thanks, Georgia. Will Robinson Smith with Spaceflight Now. Thank you all for the time today. Also to Juliana, you mentioned obviously later on tonight Falcon Heavy going off of Pad 39A, and your colleague Bill Gerstenmaier talked about the successful Starship flight that happened earlier this week. So can you tie it all together and talk about what is still remaining before Starship starts flying in Florida, and what boxes need to be checked before that happens? Thanks.
Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about this. I have to say, watching the Starship launch on — wow, it feels like forever ago already, but it was just recently. Everyone at SpaceX was incredibly proud to have reached orbit, deploy the Starlink spacecraft, the V3 spacecraft, and to reach that milestone. Obviously not just because that milestone is in and of itself, but we have a lot of work that we need to go execute on Starship. We need to continue to demonstrate reusability on Starship, recovering the ship, recovering the booster, and reusing those. We need to demonstrate propellant transfer, as Jared mentioned, and we need to support the Artemis mission. So we are incredibly excited about all the upcoming work we have on Starship. We intend to do at least one more launch from Starbase before our next launch out of the Cape, and we always look at flight data and look at how the mission went to inform our next steps. And so that's what we'll be doing before we make a plan for coming to the Cape.
Our next question will come from over the phones from Joey Roulette with Reuters.
Hey, thanks. Also for Juliana, I'm just curious to see if you could give us a sense of the size of the Dragon program and like how many employees work on refurbishing and maintaining the capsules. And then also, when that capsule is inevitably retired, do they all go to the Starship program, or are you going to the Starship program? What would that kind of transition look like? Thank you.
That is a good question. I actually don't know the exact number of SpaceX personnel who work on Dragon. I know we have a very cross-cutting team. Obviously, some of that team is based in Hawthorne, working in engineering and production. Some of that team is based here at the Cape doing refurbishment and preparation for launch. So I'd have to get back to you on the exact number of Dragon folks. But yeah, one of the things that I think is actually really unique and amazing about SpaceX is we consistently have programs at SpaceX that are in the development phase and in the consistent execution phase. And so there are different types of engineers and specialists who like to work on different types of programs. And we're really lucky at SpaceX that we have opportunities for those people to work on a development program, make it operational, and go work on another development program. So we see a lot of moving across different space activities. I started my career on Falcon, for example, and joined the Dragon team about a year ago. So there's a lot of movement at SpaceX to work on those different programs. I think it's one of the strengths we have.
Next question will also come from over the phones from Jeff Foust with SpaceNews.
Hey. Good afternoon. A question for either Lori or Dana. Have you had any discussions yet with international partners about a potential extension of the ISS beyond 2030, given some of the discussions about timelines for getting the kids online? And then for Matthew, what is CSA thinking about how it will participate after the end of the ISS in commercial space station? Thank you.
Yeah. Why don't you take the first stab at it?
Okay. In terms of the partnership, one of the things that we do is we like to keep options open. We don't do anything to the spacecraft or the sparing anything that would preclude the ability for Space Station to be extended. As I know you're all aware, each of the governments has their own process that they have to go through. So just like us going through this, it's true for all of our programs in terms of how they're authorized and appropriated. So each different agency has a process they go through in a government. So from a standpoint, they keep the body of technical work on track to support both. We have plans in place to do orbit Space Station. That's the primary path that we're all on. So we're all doing the technical body of work at the same time. None of the space agencies have done anything that precludes them if all of the governments involved chose to extend.
Thank you. Next question comes from second row in the black.
