NASA's Crew-13 Reaches the Space Station: What Will They Study in Orbit?
A new crew arrived at the International Space Station on October 1, 2026. Here is who they are and what NASA says they will work on.
Who arrived
NASA's station blog says NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov entered the station after the Dragon spacecraft's hatch opened at 9:19 p.m. EDT on October 1. They joined the Expedition 75 crew already aboard: NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway and Anil Menon, ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov, Anna Kikina and Andrey Fedyaev. NASA says six spacecraft were attached to the station that day.
What they will study
NASA describes three themes in its Crew-13 science preview:
- Health. The crew will use microgravity to produce tissues from human stem cells. Such tissues can support personalized medicine, disease modeling and drug screening for conditions such as heart disease and Parkinson's disease. They will also study factors linked to blood flow abnormalities in space and test a new in-flight device for monitoring astronaut health.
- Food. They will install a mostly autonomous plant growth facility and grow crops in "plant pillows" in locations of their choosing around the station, to learn how to produce food on long missions.
- Deep-space technology. NASA says the work helps validate technologies needed for missions to the Moon and Mars.
NASA adds that this research sits alongside station maintenance and planned spacewalks.
Why it matters on Earth
People have lived aboard the station continuously for over 25 years, NASA notes. Tissue studies and health monitors tested in orbit can feed back into medicine on the ground.
Sources
- NASA, "Crew-13 Members Enter Station, Join Expedition 75", October 1, 2026: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2026/10/01/crew-13-members-enter-station-join-expedition-75/
- NASA, "Crew-13 Research Advances Health, Food, and Deep-Space Science", October 1, 2026: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/commercialcrew/2026/10/01/crew-13-research-advances-health-food-and-deep-space-science/
Facts checked: October 2, 2026.