{"id":618084,"date":"2026-10-02T03:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T03:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618084\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T03:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T03:58:08","slug":"an-amazing-ride-spacex-flight-led-by-first-black-female-commander-sets-us-speed-record-spacex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618084\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018An amazing ride\u2019: SpaceX flight led by first Black female commander sets US speed record | SpaceX"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four astronauts pulled up at the International Space Station<\/a> (ISS) on Thursday after launching on an eight-hour express that set a US speed record, and that created further history with the first Black woman to lead a crew to orbit.<\/p>\n

SpaceX launched commander Jessica Watkins and her crew for Nasa after a three-week delay to fix their Dragon capsule\u2019s leaking fuel system. Thick clouds threatened all morning to halt the countdown but skies cleared enough to allow a safe liftoff from Cape Canaveral at 11.10am (1510 GMT).<\/p>\n

Seven hours and 55 minutes later, the SpaceX Dragon \u201cGrace\u201d capsule docked at an ISS port, setting a record for the fastest trip by a US spacecraft to the outpost.<\/p>\n

Image taken from a Nasa video shows the SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts docking at the International Space Station. Photograph: NASA\/AP<\/p>\n

In a live broadcast on Nasa<\/a> TV, the capsule appeared to glide gently toward a stationary ISS as both hurtled through space at about 17,500mph (28,100 km\/h).<\/p>\n

The new arrivals \u2013 Americans Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Joshua Kutryk, and Russian Sergey Teteryatnikov \u2013 floated into the space station through a pressurized vestibule and addressed colleagues on Earth late Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are so excited to be here. This is truly a special place,\u201d Watkins said on the Nasa livestream. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing and kind of ironic to think that it\u2019s such a short trip to get here because the journey to get here has been long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nasa astronaut Jessica Watkins waves as she departs for the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Photograph: Joe Skipper\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Canadian Kutryk, whose wife will give birth while he\u2019s away, said it \u201cfeels really good\u201d to represent his country in space, adding he was \u201clooking forward to a good mission after some sleep. That\u2019s what I\u2019m gonna go do next\u201d.<\/p>\n

The duration of the journey depends greatly on the distance between the ISS and the spacecraft at the time of launch. It took more than 30 hours for the last crew that launched from American soil to reach the station.<\/p>\n

With the late-morning launch, Watkins became the first Black woman to lead a crew to orbit. A geologist who worked with Nasa\u2019s Mars rover Curiosity a decade ago, Watkins is making her second trip to the space station after a lengthy stay in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks for an amazing ride,\u201d Watkins radioed after liftoff.<\/p>\n

Although their stay at the ISS will last six months, the flight there was the quickest yet not only for Elon Musk\u2019s company, but any American entity, including Nasa.<\/p>\n

From left, Joshua Kutryk, Luke Delaney, Jessica Watkins and Sergey Teteryatnikov at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Thursday. Photograph: Jennifer Briggs\/Zuma Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Aside from Watkins, the other astronauts are newcomers to space: Delaney is a retired marine; Kutryk is a colonel in the Royal Canadian air force; and Teteryatnikov, a former submariner. They will replace four astronauts who have been living at the orbiting laboratory since February.<\/p>\n

This was the 13th crew launched by SpaceX for Nasa, not counting 2020\u2019s test flight. The Crew-13 designation in their mission patch pays homage to Apollo 13, the harrowing 1970 moonshot that ended with the astronauts\u2019 safe return.<\/p>\n

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket topped with the Dragon capsule lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Photograph: Chandan Khanna\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

References to the number 13 abounded Thursday. Watkins and her crew rode to the launch pad in black Teslas bearing plates that read \u201cLucky 13\u201d. They also carried up a small crocheted golden dragon named Lucky with a four-leaf clover around its neck.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe figured it wouldn\u2019t hurt to bring a little of our own luck just in case, but clearly we don\u2019t need it,\u201d Watkins said from orbit, noting they were \u201cfour of the luckiest humans on or off planet Earth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Heather Kutryk will give birth while her husband is orbiting Earth, making him the fourth man to become a father while doing so. Heather is due to give birth to their third child in late November.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of life-changing things can happen over six months,\u201d Nasa manager Dana Weigel said on the eve of liftoff, noting that the space agency would do its best to keep Kutryk looped in to his family. The Canadian Space Agency also promised to support the family.<\/p>\n

In 2004, Nasa provided a radio link between space station astronaut Mike Fincke and his wife\u2019s delivery room during the birth of their daughter. Five years later, Randy Bresnik, commander of next year\u2019s Artemis III mission, dialed in to his wife\u2019s hospital from orbit.<\/p>\n

The happy news traveled more slowly for Austrian astronaut Franz Viehb\u00f6ck. His daughter was born a few hours after he launched to the Soviet Union\u2019s Mir space station in 1991. He was not informed until the next day.<\/p>\n

Three hours after Crew-13 blasted off, SpaceX launched a Falcon rocket from California with more than 100 mini satellites. Another Falcon was set to soar late Thursday night from Florida, with a classified satellite for the national reconnaissance office. All this comes the same week the company\u2019s massive Starship reached orbit for the first time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four astronauts pulled up at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday after launching on an eight-hour express…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-618084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}