Jessica Watkins

Jessica Watkins is an American NASA astronaut, geologist and former international rugby player. She holds a doctorate in geology from UCLA, and worked on Mars science teams, including planning for the Curiosity rover. NASA selected her in 2017. In April 2022 she launched on Crew-4 and became the first Black woman to serve on the International Space Station for a long-duration mission. On 1 October 2026 she became the first Black woman to command a crewed orbital spaceflight, as commander of Crew-13. She is the first NASA astronaut to fly twice on a Crew Dragon.

Born: 14 May 1988
Country: United States
Flights: 2: SpaceX Crew-4 (2022), SpaceX Crew-13 (2026)
Time in space: 170 days 13 hours
Stations visited: International Space Station, as part of Expedition 67, Expedition 68, Expedition 75
Flights with a company: SpaceX Crew-4 (SpaceX), SpaceX Crew-13 (SpaceX)

Data as of 2 November 2026. Source: Wikidata (CC0). All people who have flown in space.

Events

1 October 2026

Crew-13
- Crew Dragon, Falcon 9
- Jessica Watkins, Luke Delaney, Joshua Kutryk, Sergey Teteryatnikov
Crew-13 overlapped with Crew-12 for a short handover. Joshua Kutryk of the Canadian Space Agency flew as the first commercial crew astronaut from his agency, as CSA described it at the news conference, and it was Jessica Watkins' second Dragon flight.
3 videos
- NASA
1 October 2026

SpaceX Crew-13
- Crew Dragon, Falcon 9
- Jessica Watkins, Luke Delaney, Joshua Kutryk, Sergey Teteryatnikov
1 video
- NASA