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Crew-13 flew — the oxidizer-valve repair held

2026-10-01 Space

From the Space digest for 2026-10-01

Crew-13 lifted off today (~11:15 AM ET, SLC-40) after the mid-September oxidizer-valve slip held its repaired schedule; Dragon is on the fast track to the ISS, and booster B1101-3 landed back at LZ-40 (NSF/SpaceX RT coverage through the morning). Four crew launched — NASA had forecast 60% go weather hours before. NSFs launch coverage also documents a detail: the pad's orange emergency-egress slides deployed during the launch sequence.

What's genuinely new: the mission executed on the repaired schedule — crew rotation running while the CCtCap contract extends (17 missions through 2030) and Dragon recovery infrastructure winds down into retirement planning.

Links: NSF live · SpaceX broadcast

Next: Transporter-18: the orbital-data-center wave deployed — Google's TPUs are in orbit, on time