Fresh crew takes off for six-month stay aboard space station

What happened

The launch originally was planned for mid September, but the flight was delayed to replace a leaking valve in the Crew Dragon’s propulsion system. Strapped into a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, Crew 13 commander Jessica Watkins, pilot Luke Delaney, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov and Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk blasted off from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:10 a.m. SpaceX is a space company based in Hawthorne, and its products and services include Dragon and Falcon.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to begin NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 on Oct. Her crewmates are space rookies, the 296th, 297th and 298th astronauts to fly aboard the ISS.

Delaney and Kutryk are both former military test pilots while Teteryatnikov served in the Russian submarine force before becoming a cosmonaut. The four members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission exit the Neil A.