Jessica Watkins commands Crew-13 as the first Black woman to command an orbital flight

Jessica Watkins commanded the Crew-13 mission when it lifted off Oct. 1, 2026, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, becoming the first Black woman to hold the commander’s role on an orbital flight. The crew reached orbit nine minutes after liftoff and joined Expedition 75 for a long-duration science mission.

Flying with Watkins are NASA astronaut Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Delaney is a retired Marine and Marine Corps veteran. Kutryk is a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Teteryatnikov is a former submariner and naval engineer selected to the Roscosmos Cosmonaut Corps in 2021.

Watkins is making her second trip to the International Space Station. Her first long-duration mission was in 2022 as a mission specialist on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4. During that flight she logged 170 days in space and circled Earth 2,720 times. That long-duration flight made her the only veteran astronaut on Crew-13.

NASA selected Watkins as an astronaut in 2017. She is a Colorado native. She studied geological and environmental sciences at Stanford and geology for her UCLA doctorate. As a graduate research fellow at UCLA, she focused on emplacement mechanisms of large landslides on Mars and Earth.

Her resume includes NASA’s Ames and Jet Propulsion labs plus a role on the Curiosity rover science team. She studied Mars surface processes and contributed to the Curiosity mission a decade before her Crew-13 flight. Watkins is 38 years old. She is a geologist turned astronaut.

She is the first NASA astronaut to fly two times on a SpaceX Dragon. Her earlier Dragon flight was Crew-4 in 2022.

Crew-13 marks the 13th SpaceX crew flight for NASA, excluding the 2020 test flight. Its mission patch honors Apollo 13, the harrowing 1970 moonshot that ended with the astronauts’ safe return.

The launch was delayed three weeks to replace a faulty valve in the Dragon capsule’s propulsion system. The rocket left Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 11:10 a.m. EDT (15:10 UTC).

Crew-13 research includes human health studies, disease modeling work, and crop production in microgravity, the near-weightless condition of orbit. The work could help improve life on Earth and advance preparations for future missions to the Moon and Mars, beginning Oct. 1, 2026 and continuing onward.

In 2022, Watkins became the first Black woman to serve out a long-duration mission aboard the International Space Station. She served as a mission specialist on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 during that flight. Black Enterprise says the mission advances representation for Black women in the industry.

Watkins radioed after reaching orbit, “Thanks for an amazing ride.” After arriving at the station, she said, “We are so excited to be here. This is truly a special place.” She also described the short trip as ironic given the long journey to get there.

Kutryk wrote on X, “Leaving these three (plus one on the way) is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But that has always been the nature of exploration.” He is leaving his wife and children for the six-month expedition. He joins three other men who became fathers while in orbit.

Heather expects their third baby in late November.