NASA Shares SpaceX Crew-13 Assignments for Space Station Mission

As part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission, four crew members from three space agencies will launch no earlier than mid-September to the International Space Station for a long-duration science expedition.

NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, respectively. They will be joined by CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, who will serve as mission specialists. After arriving at the orbiting laboratory, Crew-13 will become members of the space station’s Expedition 75.

This flight is the 13th crew rotation with SpaceX to the space station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA is advancing the launch date of Crew-13 from November to help increase the frequency of U.S. crew rotation missions to the space station. The crew will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future exploration missions to the Moon and Mars, and benefit people on Earth.

This will be the second flight to the space station for Watkins, who was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017. Watkins grew up in Lafayette, Colorado, and earned an undergraduate degree in geological and environmental sciences from Stanford University, as well as a doctorate in geology from the University of California, Los Angeles. As a geologist, she studied the Martian surface and was a member of the Curiosity rover science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Watkins first launched to the space station as a crew member aboard NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 mission, spending a total of 170 days in space across Expeditions 67/68 in 2022. She will be the first NASA astronaut to launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft twice.

Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, Delaney earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of North Florida and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School. The Florida native is a distinguished naval aviator who participated in exercises throughout the Asia Pacific region and conducted missions in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. As a test pilot, Delaney evaluated developmental aircraft systems and served as a test pilot instructor. He also worked as a research pilot at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, where he supported airborne science missions. This is the first spaceflight for Delaney.

The Crew-13 mission also is the first spaceflight for Kutryk. Prior to his selection as a CSA astronaut in 2017, he served as a CF-18 fighter pilot, flying missions in support of Canada’s NATO, U.N., and North American Aerospace Defense Command commitments. A native of Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Kutryk also worked as an experimental and operational test pilot at the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment in Cold Lake, Alberta. Kutryk received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, and he is a distinguished graduate of the United States Air Force Test Pilot school in Edwards, California. He has master’s degrees in space studies, flight test engineering, and defense studies.

Crew-13 will be Teteryatnikov’s first trip to the orbiting laboratory. He graduated from the Naval Academy, St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2011 as an engineer specializing in ship power plant operations. Before his selection as a test cosmonaut, Teteryatnikov served in various naval engineering roles, including undersea vessels and specialized engine room operations. He was selected for the Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Center Cosmonaut Corps in 2021 and has served as a test cosmonaut since 2023.

For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs that aren’t possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.

Quelle: NASA

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Update: 27.04.2026

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NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 pays homage to Apollo 13 on mission patch

NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 mission patch pays homage to the Apollo 13 insignia, united by a common numerical. (NASA/collectSPACE)

NASA has assigned its first crew to launch on a mission "13" since Apollo 13 "had a problem" on the way to the moon 56 years ago.

Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney with NASA, Joshua Kutryk with the Canadian Space Agency and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov will lift off for the International Space Station as Crew-13 on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in mid-September. The four will serve as members of the station's Expedition 75 and 76 crews, before returning to Earth about five months later.

"This flight is the 13th crew rotation with SpaceX," NASA's announcement read. "The crew will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future exploration missions to the moon and Mars, and benefit people on Earth."

Rather than give into triskaidekaphobia (the fear or avoidance of 13), the crew is embracing it, or at least their connection to the last U.S. launch to be similarly numbered. The Crew-13 mission patch includes visual nods to the insignia worn by Apollo 13 astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert in April 1970.

Imitation is an option

"NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 patch looks ardently toward the future of space exploration while honoring the legacy of those who came before," reads the official description of the emblem.

At the center of the Crew-13 patch is a golden dragon, which is both a reference to the name of SpaceX's capsule and the golden horses depicted on the Apollo 13 insignia. (Lovell and his crewmates worked with NASA contract artist Norman Tiller and muralist and sculptor Lumen Winter, who proposed the equestrian design, to create their flight badge.)

The dragon's tail on the Crew-13 patch wraps around Earth in a manner reminiscent of the blue contrail that connects Earth with the horses on the Apollo 13 insignia. In the 1970 artwork, it was a nod to the Roman and Greek god Apollo; today, is a "bridge between Earth, the International Space Station, the moon and Mars," per NASA's caption.

The use of roman numerals for "XIII" (13) and the lack of crew names on the Crew-13 patch also mimic elements of the design from almost six decades ago, where as the golden stars are symbolic of the Crew-13 families and the overall capsule shape (as opposed to a circle) references the "possibilities born out of human collaboration toward a common goal," according to the space agency.

It comes after 12

Prior to Crew-13, NASA managers leaned into the superstition and devised a less intuitive but more data-driven designation that went into effect after the ninth space shuttle mission. Hence, what would have been STS-13 became STS-41-C, where the '4' was the fiscal year (1984), the '1' was the launch site (Kennedy Space Center in Florida) and 'C' the order of launch (C was the third planned flight of the year).

"I mentioned it was 41-C that originally it was STS-13, and my friend Jim Beggs, who was the Administrator of NASA, had triskaidekaphobia, and he said, 'There's not going to be [another] Apollo 13 or a Shuttle 13, so come up with a new numbering system.' So we did come up with this complex system for numbering the shuttles during that period of time," said Bob Crippen, STS-41C commander, in a NASA oral history interview.

NASA later reverted back to a straightforward numerical designation after the loss of the space shuttle Challenger and the STS-51L crew in January 1986. As such, there was an STS-113, which launched aboard space shuttle Endeavour in 2002, but not before having to make late crew changes due to medical issues. The last time that NASA faced the same decision was on Apollo 13.

"We were joking a lot about being number 113," commander Ken Bowersox told the press at the time. He added that to play it safe, the mission patch used Roman numerals (CXIII).

On board the International Space Station, the 13th crewed expedition began on April 1, 2006, ten days before the 36th anniversary of the Apollo 13 launch.

The Russian space program launched six crewed missions designated as number 13. At least one of those times, the head of the country's space agency suggested it be skipped.

"Many people have superstitious beliefs," said Roscosmos director Anatoly Perminov, according to his press secretary, in 2008. "That's why I think that it is a good idea to change the number of the next space ship."

Despite the concern, Soyuz TMA-13 went forward as planned. As did Soyuz 13, Soyuz T-13 and Soyuz TM-13 before it.

Soyuz TMA-13M launched Reid Wiseman and Soyuz MS-13 landed with Christina Koch. Both U.S. astronauts went on to fly aboard NASA's Artemis II missionearlier this month, a crewed fly by of the moon that broke the distance record set by the Apollo 13 astronauts.

Quelle: collectSPACE