SpaceX Crew Dragon Sets American Flight Record to Space Station
The rapid transit substantially cuts the time astronauts must spend confined inside a small capsule before beginning their orbital mission.
A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying four astronauts docked with the International Space Station on Thursday, completing the trip in 7 hours and 55 minutes. NASA said the journey was the fastest flight from launch to docking by any American spacecraft in the history of the station.
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 11:10 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Dragon capsule docked autonomously with the Harmony module at 7:05 p.m. EDT while both vehicles flew about 263 miles above Earth. Astronauts opened the hatch roughly two hours later and entered the outpost.
The Crew-13 mission includes NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Watkins serves as commander, becoming the first Black woman to command a space station crew. Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov are making their first trips to space.
SpaceX director Julianna Scheiman said the station was in an opportune orbital position at liftoff. She noted that orbital mechanics aligned to produce the shortest transit duration the company has achieved.
The flight broke the previous American record of 12 hours and 33 minutes, which SpaceX established in November 2024 during an uncrewed cargo run. The prior crewed speed mark for a U.S. vehicle stood at 14 hours and 43 minutes, set by Crew-11 in August 2025.
The all-time record for docking at the International Space Station remains with Russia. A Soyuz spacecraft carrying three crew members reached the orbital complex in 3 hours and 3 minutes in October 2020 after completing two Earth orbits.
The newly arrived team joined seven Expedition 75 crew members aboard the station to begin a six-month science expedition. The four Crew-12 astronauts whom they are replacing are scheduled to return to Earth in their own Dragon capsule as early as Monday.
