Science1 publisher2 min readPublished
SpaceX Crew-13 will fly stem-cell heart and Parkinson's tissue models to the space station
NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 will fly four astronauts from three agencies to the space station no earlier than Oct. 1. Its research includes human stem-cell-derived heart and Parkinson's tissue models, and their value will depend on how they compare with matched samples kept on the ground.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- NASA's Jessica Watkins commands and Luke Delaney pilots, with CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov flying as mission specialists.
- The crew launches from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and will join the station's Expedition 75 crew.
- The crew rides the Dragon capsule Grace, last flown in summer 2025 on the private Axiom Mission 4.
- Watkins, who logged 170 days in space on Crew-4 in 2022, will become the first NASA astronaut to launch twice aboard a Dragon.
- Crew-12, now aboard the station, is preparing to return to Earth after a brief handover once Crew-13 arrives.
Compiled by The ScientistSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- constraint The heart and Parkinson's tissue work can be weighed only once investigators publish how many samples flew and how the results compare with matched ground samples.
- constraint Oct. 1 is a floor that can only move later, and it still depends on a crew dress rehearsal and an integrated static fire test that have yet to run.
- precedent Putting an agency rotation crew in a capsule whose last trip carried a private mission adds private flights to the service history of the vehicles NASA crews ride.
NASA's mission overview describes Crew-13's science in two sentences from Dana Weigel, who manages NASA's Low Earth Orbit Program at Johnson Space Center in Houston [7]. "During the mission, the crew will help researchers treat heart disease and Parkinson's disease by studying human stem-cell derived tissues that can help improve medicine, disease modeling, and pharmaceutical testing," Weigel said [5].
Nobody will be treated in orbit. The tissues are models grown from human stem cells, and the second half of her sentence says what they are for: disease modeling and drug testing [5]. Whether a flown tissue model teaches researchers anything depends on its design: how many samples go up, and which matched samples stay on the ground as controls. NASA's overview does not name the investigations or describe those designs [5].
The rest of the list goes beyond the tissue work. "They also will explore crop production, which is important for longer-duration spaceflight missions, help us better understand blood flow abnormalities that we see in space, and test new diagnostic medical equipment for monitoring crew health," Weigel said [6]. NASA presents the mission's science as work toward future Moon and Mars missions and toward improving life on Earth [8].
The sample size for the diagnostic equipment is easy to state. The equipment is meant for monitoring crew health, and on this flight the crew is four people [2]. Two of them, Delaney and Kutryk, have never flown in space before [16][17]. Watkins is a geologist who studied the Martian surface as a member of the Curiosity rover science team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory [15].
The flight is the 13th SpaceX crew rotation to the station under NASA's Commercial Crew Office [9]. Its Falcon 9 booster is being prepared for its third flight [10].
What to watch
- Whether NASA or the investigators name the stem-cell tissue studies and publish their flight sample counts and ground-control plans.
- Results of the integrated static fire test and crew dry dress rehearsal, and whether the 11:10 a.m. EDT Oct. 1 target holds.
- Timing of the Crew-12 handover and return once Crew-13 docks.