‘An amazing ride’: SpaceX flight led by first Black female commander sets US speed record

Four astronauts pulled up at the International Space Station 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.

SpaceX launched commander Jessica Watkins and her crew for Nasa after a three-week delay to fix their Dragon capsule’s leaking fuel system. Thick clouds threatened all morning to halt the countdown but in the end, the skies cleared enough to allow for a safe liftoff.

With the late-morning launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Watkins became the first Black woman to lead a crew to orbit. A geologist who worked with Nasa’s Mars rover Curiosity a decade ago, Watkins is making her second trip to the space station following a lengthy stay in 2022.

“Thanks for an amazing ride,” Watkins radioed following liftoff.

Although their stay at the ISS will last a long six months, the flight there was the quickest yet not only for Elon Musk’s company, but any American entity, including Nasa. The space station’s convenient location when the astronauts launched enabled the fast transit.

The fresh arrivals include a Canadian man whose wife will give birth while he’s away.

Aside from Watkins, the other astronauts are newcomers to space: Nasa’s Luke Delaney, a retired marine; Canada’s Joshua Kutryk, a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force; and Russia’s Sergey Teteryatnikov, a former submariner. They will replace four astronauts who have been living at the orbiting laboratory since February.

This was the 13th crew launched by SpaceX for Nasa, not counting 2020’s test flight. The Crew-13 designation in their mission patch pays homage to Apollo 13, the harrowing 1970 moonshot that ended with the astronauts’ safe return.

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

“We figured it wouldn’t hurt to bring a little of our own luck just in case, but clearly we don’t need it,” Watkins said from orbit, noting they were “four of the luckiest humans on or off planet Earth”.

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.

“A lot of life-changing things can happen over six months,” 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.

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

The happy news traveled more slowly for Austrian astronaut Franz Viehböck. His daughter was born a few hours after he launched to the Soviet Union’s Mir space station in 1991. He was not informed until the next day.

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’s massive Starship reached orbit for the first time.