NASA and SpaceX are targeting Sept. 12 for the launch of the Crew-13 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) which includes Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Joshua Kutryk embarking on his first spaceflight.
This will be Canada’s fourth long-duration mission. Previously Robert Thirsk flew on Expedition 20/21 in 2009, spending 187 days in space. He was followed by Chris Hadfield who flew on Expedition 34/35 in 2012–2013 and became the first Canadian ISS commander and spent 146 days in space. The last Canadian long-duration mission was on Expedition 58/59 in 2018–2019 with David Saint-Jacques, a doctor, who set the Canadian record with a 204-day mission.
Kutryk will serve as a mission specialist on Crew-13 alongside NASA commander Jessica Watkins, NASA pilot Luke Delaney, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. During the six-month expedition in low-Earth orbit, Kutryk will operate Canadarm2 and conduct medical research, including Canadian-led experiments like Cardiobreath and Astrofit, which monitor cardiovascular health and remote medical diagnostics.
“We are looking for solutions to medical problems that we have here on Earth, and we are just using the space environment to do it,” Kutryk said during a news conference at Johnson Space Center. “You can do medical studies in space in a very efficient way, because we have aging happening in fast forward.”
On a personal note, Kutryk revealed that his wife Heather is expecting their third child during the six-month mission aboard the space station. When asked about the timing of the birth, Kutryk joked, “It’s about midway through — pretty much perfect timing. That’s sarcasm.” To help Kutryk and his family, the CSA has dedicated medical and support teams on the ground in Houston and Canada to support his family during the birth.
For his personal memento, Kutryk is bringing a century-old pocket watch carried by his great-grandparents when they first emigrated from Ukraine to homestead in Canada. He noted the profound symbolism of taking an object from 100 years ago onto a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
The mission features a hardware update to the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, named Grace, and an upgrade to the astronaut flight spacesuits. Engineers replaced a composite panel beneath the spacecraft’s abort thrusters with a metallic Mudflap 2.0 version to improve manufacturing margins. The crew will launch with the upgraded R3 spacesuits designed to better accommodate spinal elongation. In a microgravity environment, the human spine decompresses, causing astronauts to grow taller during a long-duration mission. Previous suit iterations often became tight when astronauts put them back on for the journey home. The R3 suit incorporates adjustable sizing to account for this growth alongside modifications to improve donning and doffing. This suit is worn only when the astronauts fly to and leave the ISS. It is not designed for spacewalks, which require dedicated suits equipped with independent life-support backpacks.
On the ground, NASA has authorized SpaceX to privatize its launch pad rescue operations. By replacing military personnel with an in-house rescue team, SpaceX gains full operational autonomy. They will now use Tesla Cybertrucks instead of military-supplied vehicles to evacuate the crew during a launch pad emergency. Richard Jones, deputy director of the NASA’s commercial crew program, noted this shift allows SpaceX to decouple its operations from military resource availability, eliminating scheduling conflicts that previously strained resources during concurrent NASA operations.
Other notable items from the NASA news conference included the fact that Commander Jessica Watkins will become the first NASA astronaut to launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft twice (having previously flown on Crew-4). As well, the mission timeline includes potential spacewalks to install modification kits for new iROSA solar arrays and perform preparation steps to upgrade the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS).
As the ISS heads toward a planned retirement in 2030, Crew-13 will help maintain a continuous human presence while serving as a testbed for future deep-space exploration. Astronauts will test life-support systems and gather vital human health data necessary to help execute NASA’s upcoming Artemis lunar missions. Kutryk views the outpost and its preparation for these deep-space ambitions as a testament to international cooperation.
“I hope that is part of the legacy, that people see this beacon in the sky going around Earth, one of the most complex things humans have ever created,” Kutryk said. “It is testament to what we have done, what we can do, and really to what we hope the generations that follow can do.”