Four astronauts left Florida on Thursday morning and were floating aboard the International Space Station by the evening. NASA reports that its SpaceX Crew-13 mission lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11.10am Eastern time on 1 October and docked at the station’s Harmony module about seven hours and 50 minutes later.
According to NASA, that is the fastest launch-to-docking by a US spacecraft in the station’s history.
The Dragon capsule is commanded by NASA’s Jessica Watkins, with fellow NASA astronaut Luke Delaney as pilot. They are joined by Joshua Kutryk of the Canadian Space Agency and Sergey Teteryatnikov of Roscosmos. The four have joined the Expedition 75 crew for a long-duration stay, with experiments on board that include an autonomous system for growing crops in orbit, part of the groundwork for missions deeper into space.
Source: NASA