The next crew rotation to the International Space Station has been pushed back to October 1 after a leak in the oxidizer system was found during preparations. The launch of Crew-13 had been planned earlier, and the delay means the current Expedition 75 crew will keep working on the station a little longer before the handover.
Crew-13 is made up of two NASA astronauts, one Canadian and one cosmonaut from Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. The four are already in quarantine, which began on September 17. Once they arrive, they will take over from the Crew-12 team after a short handover period, keeping the station staffed around the clock.
Resupply has also moved forward. The Russian Progress MS-35 cargo ship launched on September 16 after a hydraulic problem held it up, and it docked at the Poisk module on September 19. It carried roughly 2,600 kilograms of supplies. Earlier, the older Progress MS-33 had undocked and burned up on reentry on September 7.
Spacewalk work continued too. On September 1, the crew carried out the station's 248th spacewalk, known as EVA-99. During that outing, astronauts repaired a snagged heater harness in a shoulder joint. Two more spacewalks are planned to install new iROSA solar arrays, though those dates have not been fixed. Officials have noted that the aging suits, which date back to the Shuttle era, keep causing delays and repairs.
Inside the station, the crew is running a lead-free soldering experiment in the Harmony module and continuing exercise and lower-body negative pressure suit evaluations. Expedition 75 is scheduled to run until spring 2027. Separately, a SpaceX contract modification covers Crew-15 through Crew-17, while Boeing's Starliner problems remain unresolved.
We rewrote this story on 4 November 2026 after an editorial review.
Credit. Based on reporting by Justin Davenport for NASASpaceflight. Is this your work? Write to us.
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