NASA's live arrival coverage began at 5:20 p.m. EDT for rendezvous, docking, and hatch opening. After docking, the crew changed out of their spacesuits and prepared cargo for offload before opening the hatch to the Harmony module at around 8:45 p.m. NASA streamed the arrival on nasa.gov/live.

Who is on the station now?

The newcomers join three astronauts already aboard: NASA's Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina.

After a brief handover, the Crew-12 team will return to Earth. That crew consists of NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

What science will Crew-13 run?

The mission's research agenda spans medicine, agriculture, and astronaut health:

• Lab-grown human tissue. The crew will use microgravity to produce human stem cell-derived tissues. NASA says this could improve personalized medicine, disease modeling, and pharmaceutical testing for conditions such as heart disease and Parkinson's. In the near-weightless environment of orbit, cells can grow into structures that are difficult to recreate on Earth.
• Space farming. The crew will test a new, mostly autonomous plant growth system for crop production and study how plants grow outside dedicated research facilities — key knowledge for long missions where fresh food cannot be delivered.
• Blood flow in microgravity. Continuing human-health studies will examine factors linked to blood-flow abnormalities astronauts can develop in weightlessness.
• Inflight diagnostics. The crew will test a new medical device designed to monitor astronaut health during the mission itself, rather than waiting for results after return.

"Each space station mission adds to our blueprint for exploration, and the work our crews carry out guides our plans while ensuring we keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible in human spaceflight," said Dr. Lori Glaze, associate administrator of NASA's Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate in Washington.

Glaze added that the steady cadence of commercial crew launches shows the essential role the station plays in sustaining a human presence in Earth's orbit and in developing tools for future missions to the Moon and Mars.

Why this mission matters

Crew-13 belongs to NASA's Low Earth Orbit Program, which partners with private companies — here, SpaceX — to provide reliable access to space. The program supports research and development aboard the station and builds the operational experience NASA says it needs for missions beyond low Earth orbit, including lunar exploration.

The launch also continues a long-running international arrangement: a Roscosmos cosmonaut flew on a U.S. commercial spacecraft alongside NASA, Canadian, and — soon, via Crew-12's return — European crew members.

For the Crew-13 astronauts, the work now shifts to the orbiting laboratory, where Watkins, Delaney, Kutryk, and Teteryatnikov will spend their expedition growing tissues, tending plants, and tracking their own health — experiments NASA expects to inform both medicine on Earth and the design of future deep-space missions.