Eight hours to the space station: Watkins leads the fastest US crew flight ever

SpaceX's Crew-13 lifted off from Cape Canaveral on the morning of October 1 — three weeks late after engineers fixed a leak in the Dragon capsule's fuel system — and pulled up to the International Space Station about eight hours later: the fastest US launch-to-docking flight ever flown. Commander Jessica Watkins, a NASA geologist who once helped steer the Curiosity rover across Mars, became the first Black woman to lead a crew to orbit. Beside her: pilot Luke Delaney, a retired Marine; Joshua Kutryk of Canada, whose wife Heather is expecting their third child in late November — he'll become a father while circling the Earth; and Russia's Sergey Teteryatnikov, a former submariner. All four are newcomers except Watkins, and their six-month stay replaces a crew that has been up there since February. 'We figured it wouldn't hurt to bring a little of our own luck,' Watkins radioed from orbit. 'Clearly we don't need it.'