Four astronauts will travel to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The new crew will spend approximately six months in orbit, replacing colleagues who will return to Earth. Among them is Canadian Joshua Kutryk, the great-grandson of an immigrant from western Ukraine. This will be his first spaceflight, and he will carry a family heirloom brought from his ancestral homeland.
The Thirteenth Crew Rotation
Crew-13 will be the thirteenth crew rotation mission conducted by NASA in partnership with SpaceX. Launch is scheduled for October 1 at 6:10 p.m. Kyiv time from Cape Canaveral, Florida, although the date could still change.
The four astronauts will fly aboard the Dragon spacecraft named Grace, which previously carried the participants of the private Axiom Mission 4 expedition in the summer of 2025. The Falcon 9 first-stage booster will be making its third flight.
Docking with the Harmony module will be automatic, although the astronauts can take over the controls if necessary. They will spend approximately six months in orbit.
A Watch from Ukraine
This will be Joshua Kutryk’s first spaceflight. A native of Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, he flew CF-18 fighter jets before becoming a test pilot. He joined the Canadian Space Agency’s astronaut corps in 2017.
His family’s roots lie in western Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Joshua Kutryk’s great-grandfather immigrated in 1910 and settled near the village of Beauvallon. His father, Barry, became the third generation to work the same farm. Ukrainian was his father’s first language, and the children were raised with Ukrainian traditions and taught folk dancing.
Joshua Kutryk will take a pocket watch to the station, reports SpaceQ. His ancestors brought this heirloom from their homeland more than a century ago.
Joshua Kutryk was initially assigned to the crew of Boeing Starliner’s first operational flight in November 2023. That launch was postponed repeatedly, so the Canadian astronaut was reassigned to Crew-13 in April 2026. He explained to SpaceQ that Canada was running out of time to use its allotted slot under the agreement between the station’s partners.
Joshua Kutryk will not be the first person with Ukrainian roots to visit the station. NASA astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, the daughter of a Ukrainian immigrant, visited in 2006 and 2008 and performed spacewalks during both missions.
The Crew
Jessica Watkins will command the spacecraft on her second flight to the station. A geologist by training, she studied the surface of Mars as part of the Curiosity rover science team. In 2022, she spent 170 days in orbit as a member of Crew-4. According to NASA, she will become the first astronaut from the agency to launch aboard Dragon twice.
For Luke Delaney, who will occupy the pilot’s seat, this expedition will be his debut. A former naval aviator and test pilot, he worked at NASA’s Langley Research Center, where he participated in airborne scientific research. Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteriatnikov is the fourth member of Crew-13.
Experiments in Orbit
One of the main tasks involves tissues grown from human stem cells. These will be used to study heart disease and Parkinson’s disease, with the results supporting disease modeling and drug testing, explained Dana Weigel, manager of NASA’s low Earth orbit operations program.
Plant-growing experiments are needed for long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars, where regular food deliveries from Earth will not be possible. Several other experiments focus on circulatory problems in weightlessness and new diagnostic equipment for monitoring crew health.
After arriving, the four astronauts will take over duties from the members of Expedition 75, some of whom will return to Earth aboard the Crew-12 spacecraft. Later, the crew will welcome a SpaceX cargo spacecraft carrying new roll-out solar arrays for the station.
