Cape Canaveral — NASA's Crew-13 Launches to ISS With Heirloom Watch

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA's Crew-13 lifted off at 11:10 a.m. ET Thursday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending four crew members toward the International Space Station despite earlier concerns about weather, according to ABC News.

Who is flying on Crew-13?

The Dragon spacecraft carries Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, ABC News reported. The flight is Watkins' second trip to space; it is the first spaceflight for Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov. The mission is part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, the agency's long-running arrangement with private companies to ferry astronauts to low Earth orbit.

Just before liftoff, launch controllers thanked the crew for "their commitment to human spaceflight" and wished them "Godspeed," according to the outlet. Watkins responded by thanking the NASA, SpaceX, CSA and Roscosmos teams: "It's an honor and privilege to represent all of you who have contributed to the success of this mission. With gratitude and grace, Crew-13 is ready to fly."

Why did Kutryk bring a 100-year-old pocket watch?

Kutryk, a fourth-generation Ukrainian Canadian, brought a pocket watch that has been in his family for more than a century, ABC News reported. Asked about it at an August prelaunch news conference, he gave a practical reason first — "I need a watch to tell time" — then a personal one. "For me, it's really neat to look at that and reflect on just how much has changed in those 100 years, a little over 100 years," Kutryk said, according to the outlet. "If that's how much change in the last hundred years, how much more could change if we do things right in the next hundred?"

The watch has been passed down since the first generation of his family, a detail Kutryk said ties his spaceflight to how far his family and the world have traveled in a century.

How fast will Crew-13 reach the station?

NASA and SpaceX said the trip would be the fastest journey to the ISS ever made by an American spacecraft, with a transit time of 7 hours and 50 minutes and docking scheduled for 7 p.m. ET Thursday, according to ABC News. Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX's vice president of Build and Flight Reliability, attributed the quick trip to orbital positioning rather than any change in propulsion or flight design.

"The angle separation between space station and Dragon is very, very close, and that's just essentially orbital mechanics that got us in the right place," Gerstenmaier said at a Wednesday prelaunch briefing, per the outlet. "There was a recent orbit adjustment maneuver done by space station, and that kind of set things up, and we just kind of got lucky that they line up and work out extremely well."

What happens once Crew-13 arrives?

Hatch opening is set for around 8:45 p.m. ET Thursday, ABC News reported. Crew-13 will then begin a brief handover period with Crew-12, the outgoing team that has staffed the station since February. Crew-12 is expected to depart and return to Earth as early as Monday, Oct. 5.

Crew-13 is scheduled to spend about six months aboard the ISS, continuing the station's standard long-duration rotation under the Commercial Crew Program.

Launch and Mission at a Glance

• Liftoff: 11:10 a.m. ET Thursday, Oct. 1, from Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
• Transit time to ISS: 7 hours, 50 minutes — the fastest trip to the station by an American spacecraft, per NASA and SpaceX
• Docking: scheduled for 7 p.m. ET Thursday
• Hatch opening: around 8:45 p.m. ET Thursday
• Crew-12 departure: as early as Monday, Oct. 5, after handover
• Crew-13 station stay: approximately six months

The crew roster spans three space agencies — NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and Roscosmos — underscoring the ISS's continued operation as a multinational outpost even as NASA's Commercial Crew Program relies on a private contractor, SpaceX, for the ride.

For Kutryk, the pocket watch functions as both tool and symbol aboard a spacecraft built on technology that did not exist when the timepiece was first wound. Whether future decades bring the kind of change Kutryk described — enough to make the last century's pocket watch feel as distant from new technology as Crew-13's capsule — is a question he posed without answering at the August briefing, according to ABC News.