SpaceX Crew-13 astronauts dock at ISS less than 8 hours after launch of fastest US flight ever
SpaceX’s latest astronaut launch just set a new space record.
The company Crew Mission-13 because NASA arrived at International Space Station (ISS) today (October 1) at 7:05 p.m. EDT (11:05 p.m. GMT), 7 hours and 55 minutes later launched from Florida’s Space Coast.
It is the fastest U.S. spacecraft ever to reach an orbiting laboratory, NASA officials said.
The previous record was 12 hours and 33 minutes, set in November 2024 by SpaceX. Dragon cargo capsule during the robot CRS-31 refueling flight. The fastest time the astronauts completed the trip aboard a US vehicle was 14 hours and 43 minutes, which was achieved by the Crew Mission-11 in August 2025.
“We got lucky this time,” Julianna Scheiman, NASA’s director of science and Dragon programs, told AFP. EspaceXsaid today during the Crew-13 post-launch press conference.
“The space station was in an opportune location in space, and the orbital mechanics, the physics of it all, made this the shortest launch to docking time we’ve had to date,” she said, adding that “it’s close to the fastest possible time.”
However, Crew 13 did not set the overall ISS speed record – not even close. In May 2020, a Russian Soyuz a spacecraft carrying three astronauts reached the orbiting laboratory just 3 hours and 3 minutes after taking off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz overtook the ISS after only two orbits around the Earth.
The Soyuz is no faster or more powerful than a Dragon capsule carrying cargo or a crew. The difference in tracking times is mainly due to choices made by mission controllers; Russia tends to target more aggressive “accelerated” trajectories.
Crew 13 delivered four astronauts to the orbiting laboratory: NASA’s Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, NASA’s Joshua Kutryk Canadian Space Agency and Sergey Teteryatnikov of the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos. The quartet will live and work in space for the next six months.
They will replace the four SpaceX astronauts Crew Mission-12launched in mid-February. These astronauts – NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space AgencySophie Adenot and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev could return to Earth aboard their Crew Dragon capsule as early as Monday, October 5, according to NASA officials.
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