Eight spacecraft are docked to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time ever, making it feel very full, much like a post-Thanksgiving stomach. This historic moment marks a significant milestone in the ISS's history, as it now has all eight docking ports fully occupied. NASA officials announced this achievement in a statement on December 1, 2025, highlighting the complex's evolution since its construction began in 1998. The agency's Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston played a crucial role in preparing for the arrival of the Soyuz crew by using the ISS's robotic Canadarm2 to move Northrop Grumman's Cygnus-23 cargo spacecraft, ensuring appropriate clearance for the incoming crewed spacecraft. Cygnus-23 was then reinstalled at the Earth-facing port of the station's Unity module, making it the second spacecraft in the lineup. Another Soyuz vehicle, Soyuz MS-27, is also docked at the ISS, but its stay is coming to an end. It is scheduled to depart the ISS with NASA's Jonny Kim and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky on December 8, landing in Kazakhstan shortly after. The remaining five spacecraft include the Russian Progress-92 and Progress-93 robotic cargo spacecraft, which are docked at the Russian Poisk and Zvezda modules, respectively. The Japanese HTV-X1 cargo craft is berthed at the nadir port of the station's Harmony Node 2, and two SpaceX Dragon capsules are also docked at the two other ports on Harmony used for visiting spacecraft. One of these Dragon capsules is the Commercial Resupply Services-33 (CRS-33) robotic cargo capsule, at the Harmony Node 2 forward port, while the other is the Crew-11 Dragon, on Harmony's space-facing port. Crew-11 is an astronaut mission, with its crew members completing the Expedition 73 long-duration astronauts on the ISS, including NASA's Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, Kimiya Yui from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and Oleg Platonov from Roscosmos. The quartet will return to Earth in 2026, marking another significant achievement in human spaceflight.
