Why SpaceX ended the curse of the number 13 installed in the Apollo era

Crew 13 carried four astronauts to the International Space Station and reclaimed a number NASA avoided for more than five decades (SpaceX) The number 13 carries a negative reputation in various social spheres, especially in the United States. Buildings without a 13th floor, airplanes without row 13, and hotels that jump from 12 to 14 reflect a belief known as triskaidekaphobia: the fear of the number 13. There is no scientific evidence attributing any ability to that number to alter physical or technological events. Even so, the accident of the Apollo 13 mission left behind an association that transcended popular culture and penetrated the administrative decisions of the space agency. When the Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on October 1, SpaceX launched the first American astronaut mission identified with the number 13 since the Apollo era. The Crew-13 flight marked far more than a new rotation to the International Space Station: it closed a long chapter of symbolic precautions within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), an institution that for decades avoided assigning that number to its crewed flights. The choice was not made carelessly either. Elon Musk's company operates astronaut rotations to the orbital laboratory under NASA's commercial crew program, and this flight corresponds to the thirteenth trip of a Crew Dragon capsule under that contract. The agency accepted the number without changes, unlike what happened after the Apollo 13 accident, the mission that turned that figure into a reminder of risk, chance, and technical capacity to survive an extreme crisis. Crew-13 lifted off at 15:10 GMT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Aboard were commander Jessica Watkins and pilot Luke Delaney, both NASA astronauts; Joshua Kutryk, of the Canadian Space Agency; and Sergey Teteryatnikov, of the Russian corporation Roscosmos. The four began an expedition planned to last five and a half months aboard the International Space Station (ISS). After docking, the crew briefly shared station operations with the members of Crew-12 before the latter returned to Earth. In operational terms, the rotation reflects the current routine of commercial crewed flights. However, the designation opened a discussion that NASA had avoided since 1970: to what extent can a scientific agency separate technical management from the cultural weight of a superstition. The Aquarius lunar module served as a lifeboat for Lovell, Swigert and Haise after the loss of power, oxygen and water during the return (NASA) Apollo 13 lifted off on April 11, 1970, aboard a Saturn V, with a concrete goal: to land in the lunar region of Fra Mauro. Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert made up the crew. The mission aspired to achieve the third American lunar landing, following the successes of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12, but a malfunction in the service module changed the course of the flight when the spacecraft was already traveling toward the Moon. Even before the explosion, several elements fed the number's fame. Ken Mattingly, the original command module pilot, was pulled from the mission days before launch due to possible exposure to rubella. Jack Swigert took his place with little preparation time alongside Lovell and Haise. The change was extraordinary for a lunar mission, though it involved neither a technical failure nor a sign of an adverse fate. The count was not free of anomalies during the ascent either. One of the five J-2 engines of the second stage shut down earlier than planned. The automatic systems extended the burn of the four remaining engines by 34 seconds and the operation of the third stage by nine seconds. That response allowed the spacecraft to reach the planned trajectory. Once the maneuver was completed, the crew entered a phase of flight that seemed stable. Apollo 13 suffered the explosion of an oxygen tank 322,000 kilometers from Earth and its crew returned safely on April 17 - NASA Fred Haise himself later dismissed any connection between the mission and superstition. "I never thought about it from a superstitious standpoint, that we would have a problem on the 13th. I have no idea, nor is it related to the launch time [13:13 CST] or any other thirteen that people have tried to link to the flight," Haise said. At about 322,000 kilometers from Earth, a routine command to stir the oxygen tanks triggered the mission's central incident. Tank number two exploded inside the service module. The subsequent investigation pointed to a short circuit in the internal wiring of a sensor, whose insulation had been damaged before liftoff. The explosion also affected tank number one and knocked out two of the three fuel cells. The loss of oxygen simultaneously compromised the generation of electricity and the available water, because the fuel cells produced both resources. The lunar landing was no longer possible. The priority became the return of Lovell, Swigert, and Haise, who had to conserve power, control carbon dioxide, and calculate trajectory corrections with limited resources. The Aquarius lunar module served as a lifeboat for Lovell, Swigert and Haise after the loss of power, oxygen and water during the return - NASA The Aquarius lunar module, designed to descend to the Moon's surface, served as a refuge and power source for the three astronauts. The control team in Houston designed emergency procedures to adapt filters, ration supplies, and guide a free-return trajectory around the Moon. The crew used the Sun as a reference to align the spacecraft during one essential correction. Finally, the capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 17, 1970. The mission became embedded in collective memory as a "successful failure": it never reached the Moon, but it brought its three astronauts back alive. The outcome also demonstrated the solidity of the flight and ground control teams, although the emotional impact of the accident outweighed that technical reading. For public opinion, Apollo 13 linked the number to one of the greatest emergencies of the space race. The Crew 13 patch incorporated Roman numerals, golden tones and an ascending dragon as a tribute to the resilience of Apollo 13 (SpaceX) The institutional reaction came years later. In 1984, when the space shuttle program approached its flight numbered 13, NASA administrator Jim Beggs rejected that designation. According to Bob Crippen, commander of mission STS-41C, Beggs maintained: "There will not be another Apollo 13 or another Shuttle 13." NASA then abandoned the direct naming system STS-1, STS-2, STS-3 and adopted a complex coding scheme. The flight that would have carried the name STS-13 was renamed STS-41-C. The "4" corresponded to fiscal year 1984; the "1" identified the Kennedy Space Center as the departure point, and the letter "C" indicated the third launch scheduled for that period. The decision avoided the 13, but it made public understanding of the flight sequence more difficult. After the Challenger accident in 1986, Beggs left the administration and the letter-and-number system fell out of use. The shuttle's return to space received the designation STS-26. NASA thus recovered a clearer order, although the number 13 remained absent from American crewed missions. The STS-13 crew, redesignated as STS-41-C, created this patch highlighting superstitions and triskaidekaphobia (spacecom) There were near misses, but none broke the pattern. Expedition 13 inhabited the ISS, although its crew included an American astronaut, a Russian commander, and a German engineer, so it did not represent a national NASA flight. There was also mission STS-113, whose commander, Ken Bowersox, recalled the jokes surrounding the number. "We joked a lot about being number 113," he declared at the time. That crew's emblem used the Roman numerals CXIII. Russian missions did not avoid the number either. Soyuz TMA-13M and Soyuz MS-13 launched with that numbering without special measures. The difference shows that American wariness did not respond to a common norm of space exploration, but to the persistence of the memory of Apollo 13 within NASA's institutional culture. With Crew-13, the number ceased to function as a warning and became integrated into the crew's visual identity. Watkins and her colleagues took elements from the Apollo 13 insignia: the Roman numerals, the gold, and the figure of a dragon gazing upward. The emblem connects two periods separated by more than five decades, the state lunar program and the commercial rotations to the ISS. NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov head to the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., October 1, 2026. REUTERS/Joe Skipper "We drew a lot of inspiration from the Apollo 13 crew for the Crew-13 mission," Watkins said during the crew's arrival at the Kennedy Space Center. "We have some nods, like the Roman numerals, the gold color, and the dragon looking upward. We wanted to honor their legacy, their resilience, and their courage, and incorporate a bit of that into our team. We stand on the shoulders of giants," she concluded. The current mission does not seek to ignore what happened in 1970. On the contrary, the patch and the designation reclaim that precedent as a symbol of preparedness in the face of contingencies. Crew-13 remains aboard the International Space Station to carry out scientific tasks, maintenance of the orbital complex, and rotation operations, bearing the number that for decades stayed out of the American registry.