Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk is part of Crew-13, but while he’s hundreds of miles above Earth, one of the biggest moments of his life will be taking place back home. Kutryk and his wife, Heather, are expecting their third child around Thanksgiving, roughly two months into his mission. While he will be able to communicate with his family from the station, he will not be home for the baby's arrival.

On October 1, 2026, Kutryk launched aboard SpaceX’s Crew-13 mission, alongside Luke Delaney and Jessica Watkins, who are both NASA astronauts. The team, which also includes Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov, is expected to spend six months aboard the International Space Station before returning home near the beginning of April 2027.

Joshua Kutryk Has Two Children At Home

Joshua Kutryk and his wife are already parents to two children, ages five and seven. Before his mission launched, he and his family were able to spend some time together, including taking a trip to the launch site, where they saw the Crew Dragon spacecraft that would carry him to the International Space Station.

Kutryk has been open about how difficult it will be to be away from his family, especially during such a monumental event. “Leaving these three, plus one on the way, is the hardest thing I've ever done,” Kutryk wrote in a post on X before the launch. However, he followed that post with an introspective look at explorers throughout history, including quoting Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who called leaving his family behind to go on his own journey to the North Pole the “darkest hour of the journey.”

Kutryk Launched On His First Spaceflight

For Joshua Kutryk, missing out on the birth of his third child is a painful moment that comes on the heels of a major professional milestone, making the launch a bittersweet moment. The 44-year-old Canadian is making his first trip to space. Before becoming an astronaut, he served as a CF-18 fighter pilot and later worked as an experimental and operational test pilot. He was selected as a Canadian Space Agency astronaut in 2017.

Kutryk is only the 17th Canadian to go into space and is the first Canadian astronaut to go into orbit through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. As part of Expedition 75, he will spend six months working and living on the International Space Station.

Four Astronauts Make Up SpaceX Crew-13

Kutryk is one of four people taking part in the mission. Jessica Watkins is serving as commander, while Luke Delaney is the pilot. Sergey Teteryatnikov of Roscosmos and Kutryk are serving as mission specialists. Watkins has plenty of experience in space, having spent 170 days in space in 2022. However, she’s the only astronaut on Crew-13 to have ever gone to space.

The crew launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on October 1 at 11:10 a.m. EDT. The Dragon spacecraft was scheduled to dock at the International Space Station by that evening.

The original plans would have seen the spacecraft launch days earlier. However, it was delayed after engineers discovered an oxidizer leak and later replaced a valve in the spacecraft's propulsion system.

Kutryk Is Bringing A Family Heirloom With Him

While he cannot bring his family along with him on his first trip into space, Kutryk is bringing an heirloom into orbit. The astronaut brought a pocket watch that is more than 100 years old. When asked about his reasoning for bringing the pocket watch, Kutryk said that it would give him an opportunity to think about how much the world has changed over the last century.

According to Kutryk, “If that’s how much change in the last hundred years, how much more could change if we do things right in the next hundred?”

The Family Will Still Be Part Of His Mission

Thanks to the evolution of technology, being in space for six months no longer means that astronauts have to be completely cut off from their families. Kutryk’s third child is due around Thanksgiving, almost two months into his six-month mission, making him only the fourth person in the history of human spaceflight to welcome a child while he’s in space.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have access to communications that allow them to remain connected with family, friends, colleagues, and people following their missions. That means that Kutryk will be able to remain involved with his family from a distance, even though he won't be physically present when his wife gives birth.

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