For the primary time in Worldwide House Station historical past, all eight docking ports aboard the orbital outpost are occupied following the reinstallation of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft to the Earth-facing port of the station’s Unity module. The eight spacecraft hooked up to the complicated are: two SpaceX Dragons, Cygnus XL, JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company) HTV-X1, two Roscosmos Soyuz crew spacecraft, and two Progress cargo ships.
This milestone follows the reattachment of the Cygnus XL spacecraft, supporting the Northrop Grumman-23 industrial resupply providers mission for NASA, which was eliminated final week by the robotics officer on the company’s Mission Management Middle in Houston utilizing the area station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. The Cygnus XL motion was coordinated between NASA, Northrop Grumman, and Roscosmos to supply acceptable clearance for the coming crewed Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft on Nov. 27.
Cygnus will stay hooked up to the orbiting laboratory till no sooner than March 2026, when it’s scheduled to soundly depart and eliminate as much as 11,000 kilos of trash and unneeded cargo when it harmlessly burns up in Earth’s ambiance.
In the meantime, the 10-person Expedition 73 crew crammed its day with biology and physics analysis whereas getting ready to separate up early subsequent week.
Three new residents live aboard the area station following the arrival of the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft on Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev will keep in area till July 2026, conducting superior area analysis benefiting people dwelling on and off Earth. Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev have already begun finding out how dwelling in area impacts the microcirculatory system of their palms, fingers, ft, and toes. Williams has been helping his NASA crewmates with cargo actions.
On Dec. 8, the orbital outpost will return to seven members and develop into the Expedition 74 crew when NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky enter the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft, undock from the Prichal module, and parachute to a touchdown in Kazakhstan. The trio carried out stress and leak checks on the Sokol launch and entry fits they are going to put on subsequent week for the journey again to Earth. Ryzhikov continued packing cargo contained in the Earth-bound Soyuz, whereas Zubritsky started handing over his duties to his new Roscosmos crewmates. Kim, Ryzhikov, and Zubritsky are nearing the top of an eight-month area science mission that started on April 8, 2025.
Kim additionally joined his new crewmate Williams and NASA Flight Engineer Zena Cardman to open the Cygnus XL hatch following its reattachment Monday morning. The crew will proceed unpacking a few of the a number of tons of latest science and provides Cygnus XL delivered on Sept. 18.
Flight Engineers Mike Fincke and Kimiya Yui spent their day specializing in area analysis to study phenomena that may solely be studied within the weightless surroundings of microgravity. Fincke, from NASA, first swapped laptop {hardware} supporting a physics experiment that’s finding out methods to protect cryogenic fluids in spacecraft gas tanks. Subsequent, he configured the brand new NanoRacks Thailand Liquid Crystals experiment, which is able to observe modifications within the formation of flat liquid crystal movies in microgravity. Yui, from JAXA, studied how the mind regulates its blood circulation. He measured each his cerebral artery blood circulation and blood stress to assist docs perceive potential space-related points.
Flight Engineer Oleg Platonov spent Monday accumulating, processing, and photographing microbe samples gathered all through the station’s Roscosmos phase for evaluation. He additionally transferred knowledge highlighting the vibrations the station experiences whereas orbiting Earth to a laptop computer laptop.
Study extra about station actions by following the area station weblog, @space_station on X, in addition to the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.Get the most recent from NASA delivered each week. Subscribe here.
