KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — NASA’s Crew-13 arrived in style at the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday afternoon as they prepare for a multi-month mission on the International Space Station.

What You Need To Know

Luke Delaney, a Volusia County native, will be the pilot for the Crew-13 mission

Flying in T-38N Talon jets, the four members of Crew-13 arrived at NASA Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility. Mission pilot Luke Delaney and Canadian Space Agency’s astronaut Joshua Kutryk flew the jets from outside of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston earlier in the morning.

NASA’s Dr. Jessica Watkins will command the mission, while Delaney, a Volusia County native, will be the pilot for SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.

Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov will be mission specialists.

Watkins is a space veteran who was part of the Crew-4 mission in 2022. She spent 170 days in space.

The rest of her crew are all first-timers when it comes to trekking into space.

During a question-and-answer session with the press, Delaney told Spectrum News’ question about what it feels like to be so close to his hometown of Debary, which was about 50 miles away.

“It feels great; it just might be the weather, but I think it actually is coming here to Kennedy and coming back to Florida is definitely near and dear to my heart,” he said, adding that he used to watch the shuttle launches.  

The four will be spending months conducting many experiments that will benefit the Artemis moon missions, they said during Saturday’s press conference.

Watkins said that as a geologist, she hopes that her observations of Earth from the space station could be used for future lunar missions.

“What we can learn from (the observations) as we take that to the moon and use our remote observations of the moon to help us understand what to expect when we are able to step foot,” she said.

Kutryk said that a European Space Agency experiment is an exercise device that could be used on the moon.

The launch is scheduled for 11:10 a.m. ET, Thursday, Oct. 01.

The changing Crew-13 launch dates

Originally, Crew-13 was supposed to launch in November, but the U.S. space agency wanted to make it earlier to grow the U.S. crew rotation’s frequency.

So, NASA was eyeing the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft no earlier than mid-September; however, an oxidizer leak was discovered on Dragon’s propulsion system, so the mission was pushed back.

When the astronauts enter the floating laboratory for their more than six-month mission, they will become members of Expedition 75.

An expedition means the current crew of the International Space Station.

The mission will mark the 13th crew rotation with SpaceX to the space station, which is a part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

The program allows NASA to partner with private space companies to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The four will be spending months conducting many experiments that will benefit the Artemis moon missions, they said during Saturday’s press conference.