Over the course of several hours, technicians meticulously connected the inner and outer segments of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
NASA/Jolearra Tshiteya
Two technicians look up at NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope after its inner and outer segments were connected at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on Nov. 25, 2025. This marked the end of Roman’s construction. After final testing, the telescope will move to the launch site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch preparations in summer 2026. Roman — named after Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer — is slated to launch by May 2027, but the team is on track for launch as early as fall 2026.
The Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft is seen as it lands on April 20, 2025 (April 19 Eastern time) in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, with the Expedition 71/72 crew aboard.
NASA/Bill Ingalls
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky, is preparing to depart the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft and return to Earth.
Kim, Ryzhikov, and Zubritsky will undock from the station’s Prichal module at 8:41 p.m. EST on Monday, Dec. 8, headed for a parachute-assisted landing at 12:04 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 9 (10:04 a.m. local time in Kazakhstan), on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the city of Dzhezkazgan.
Watch NASA’s live coverage of the crew’s return on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.
The space station change of command ceremony will begin at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 7, on NASA+ and the agency’s YouTube channel. Rzyhikov will hand over station command to NASA astronaut Mike Fincke for Expedition 74, which begins at the time of Soyuz MS-27 undocking.
Kim and his crewmates are completing a 245-day mission aboard the station. At the conclusion of their mission, they will have orbited Earth 3,920 times and traveled nearly 104 million miles. This was the first flight for Kim and Zubritsky to the orbiting laboratory, while Ryzhikov is ending his third trip to space.
After landing, the three crew members will fly by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, where recovery teams are based. Kim will board a NASA aircraft and return to Houston, while Ryzhikov and Zubritsky will depart for their training base in Star City, Russia.
NASA’s coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
Sunday, Dec. 7:
10:30 a.m. – Expedition 73/74 change of command ceremony begins on NASA+Amazon Prime, and YouTube.
For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs that are not possible on Earth. The station is a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit. As commercial companies concentrate on providing human space transportation services and destinations as part of a robust low Earth orbit economy, NASA is focusing its resources on deep space missions to the Moon as part of the Artemis campaign in preparation for future human missions to Mars.
Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland used the Glenn Icing Computational Environment (GlennICE) software to create 3D computational models of this advanced air mobility rotor and study propeller icing issues. The physical model of this rotor was installed and tested in the Icing Research Tunnel in 2023 as part of an icing evaluation study, which also sought to validate the computational models.
Credit: NASA/Jordan Cochran
When flying in certain weather conditions, tiny freezing water droplets floating in the air can pose a risk to aircraft. If not taken into consideration, these water droplets can accumulate on an aircraft as ice and pose a safety risk.
But NASA software tools such as Glenn Icing Computational Environment (GlennICE) are working to keep passengers and pilots safe.
NASA developed GlennICE, a new NASA software code, to transform the way we explore, understand, and prevent ice buildup on aircraft wings and engines, as well as control surfaces like rudders and elevators.
Owing to decades of world-class NASA research, engineers nationwide can now use GlennICE to design aircraft in such a way that ice buildup will either occur rarely or pose very little risk.
Named for NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, GlennICE is part of NASA’s work to provide the aviation industry with computational tools, including design software, to improve aircraft safety and enable innovation. For icing research and modeling, NASA computer codes have become the industry standard over the past several decades. And GlennICE builds on this work, performing highly advanced digital modeling of water and ice particles in just about any atmospheric condition you can imagine.
With updated capabilities and a streamlined user experience, GlennICE will enable users to advance the state of the art – particularly researchers working on complex, unusual future aircraft designs.
“The legacy codes are well formulated to handle simulations of traditional tube-and-wing shaped aircraft,” said Christopher Porter, lead for GlennICE’s development. “But now, we have new vehicles with new designs that present icing research challenges. This requires a more advanced tool, and that’s where GlennICE comes in.”
So far, dozens of industry partners as well as other government agencies have started using GlennICE, which is available on NASA’s software catalog.
Timelapse video of an ice accretion on the 65% common research model.
Credit: NASA/Jordan Cochran
Ice buildup: not cool
Though based on legacy NASA codes such as LEWICE 3D, GlennICE is a whole different ballgame. The new toolkit can be tailored to unique situations and is compatible with other software tools. In other words, it is more configurable, and much less time consuming for researchers to set up and use.
This streamlined process, along with its more-advanced ability to model icing, allows GlennICE to easily tackle 21st-century concepts such as supersonic planes, advanced air mobility drones and other aircraft, unconventionally shaped wings, open-rotor turbofan designs, or new configurations for conventional aircraft such as radar domes.
But how does this simulation process work?
“Imagine an aircraft flying through a cloud,” Porter said. “Some of those water and ice droplets hit the aircraft and some of them don’t. GlennICE simulates these droplets and exactly where they will end up, both on the aircraft and not.”
When these water droplets hit the aircraft, they attach, freeze, and start to gather even more droplets that do the same. The software simulates exactly where this will occur, and what shape the ice will take over time.
“We’re not just dealing with the airplane, but the physics of the air and water as well,” Porter said.
Because it’s designed for simulating droplets, researchers have expressed interest in using GlennICE to simulate other conditions involving sand and ash. These substances, when ingested by aircraft engines, can pose separate risks that aeronautical engineers work to prevent.
Glenn Icing Computational Environment (GlennICE) simulated ice accretions (blue) on the High Lift Common Research Model (gray).
Credit: NASA/Thomas Ozoroski
World-class research
Icing research is fundamental to aviation safety, and NASA fulfils a key role in ensuring pilots and passengers fly more safely and ice-free. The agency’s wind tunnels, for instance, have world-class icing research capabilities not commonly found in aeronautics research.
Paired with wind tunnel testing, GlennICE offers a holistic set of capabilities to researchers. While wind tunnels can verify and validate data with real-world models and conditions, tools like GlennICE can fill gaps in research not easily achieved with wind tunnels.
“Some environments we need to test in are impractical with wind tunnels because of the tunnel size required and complex physics involved,” Porter said. “But with GlennICE, we can do these tests digitally. For example, we can model all the icing conditions noted in new regulations.”
The GlennICE development falls under NASA’s Transformative Aeronautics Concept and Advanced Air Vehicles programs. Those programs supported GlennICE to further NASA’s work on computational tool development for aerospace design. More about the history of icing research at NASA is available on the agency’s website.
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
SpaceX Crew-1 Pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialist Shannon Walker work with a Grab Sample Container (GSC) in the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft while en route to the ISS.
NASA
Toxicology and Environmental Chemistry (TEC) monitors airborne contaminants in both spacecraft air and water. In-flight monitors are employed to provide real-time insight into the environmental conditions on ISS. Archival samples are collected and returned to Earth for full characterization of ISS air and water.
Real-time in-flight air analytical instruments include the Air Quality Monitors (AQM), carbon dioxide (CO2 monitors), and a compound specific analyzer for combustion products (CSA-CP). Real-time in-flight water monitoring capabilities include the colorimetric water quality monitoring kit (CWQMK) and the ISS total organic carbon analyzer (TOCA).
Post-flight analyses are performed on archival samples of spacecraft air and water obtained at specific times and locations during a mission. Air archival samples are collected using “grab sample containers” (GSC) and formaldehyde badges. The U.S. and Russian water recovery systems on the ISS process atmospheric moisture (U.S. and Russian systems) and urine distillate (U.S. system only) into clean, potable water for the crew to use. The Water Kit is utilized to collect archival samples of the potable water and are routinely returned to the ground to monitor the quality of the water produced by the systems. Samples of condensate and wastewater are also collected and returned to check for the presence of contaminants that could break through the water recovery systems.
Results of Post-Flight Analysis of In-Flight Air Samples (Most Recent First)
NASA has selected the University of Alabama at Birmingham to provide the necessary systems required to return temperature sensitive science payloads to Earth from the Moon.
The Lunar Freezer System contract is an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity award with cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery orders. The contract begins Thursday, Dec. 4, with a 66-month base period along with two optional periods that could extend the award through June 3, 2033. The contract has a total estimated value of $37 million.
Under the contract, the awardee will be responsible for providing safe, reliable, and cost-effective hardware and software systems NASA needs to maintain temperature-critical science materials, including lunar geological samples, human research samples, and biological experimentation samples, as they travel aboard Artemis spacecraft to Earth from the lunar surface. The awarded contractor was selected after a thorough evaluation by NASA engineers of the proposals submitted. NASA’s source selection authority made the selection after reviewing the evaluation material based on the evaluation criteria contained in the request for proposals.
For information about NASA and other agency programs, visit:
NASA and industry partners will fly and operate a commercial robotic arm in low Earth orbit through the Fly Foundational Robots mission set to launch in late 2027. This mission aims to revolutionize in-space operations, a critical capability for sustainably living and working on other planets. By enabling this technology demonstration, NASA is fostering the in-space robotics industry to unlock valuable tools for future scientific discovery and exploration missions.
“Today it’s a robotic arm demonstration, but one day these same technologies could be assembling solar arrays, refueling satellites, constructing lunar habitats, or manufacturing products that benefit life on Earth,” said Bo Naasz, senior technical lead for In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) in the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This is how we build a dominant space economy and sustained human presence on the Moon and Mars.”
Artist concept of the FFR Mission’s robotic system payload atop the Astro Digital spacecraft. The robotic arm, provided by Motiv Space Systems, will perform robotic demonstrations in orbit.
Motiv Space Systems
The Fly Foundational Robots (FFR) mission will leverage a robotic arm from small business Motiv Space Systems capable of dexterous manipulation, autonomous tool use, and walking across spacecraft structures in zero or partial gravity. This mission could enable ways to repair and refuel spacecraft, construct habitats and infrastructure in space, maintain life support systems on lunar and Martian surfaces, and serve as robotic assistants to astronauts during extended missions. Advancing robotic systems in space could also enhance our understanding of similar technologies on Earth across industries including construction, medicine, and transportation.
To demonstrate FFR’s commercial robotic arm in space, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate is contracting with Astro Digital to provide a hosted orbital test through the agency’s Flight Opportunities program.
Guest roboticists will have the opportunity to contribute to the FFR mission, and participation will allow them to use Motiv’s robotic platform as a testbed and perform unique tasks. NASA will serve as the inaugural guest operator and is currently seeking other interested U.S. partners to participate.
The future of in-space robotics relies on testing robotic operations in space prior to launching more complex and extensive servicing and refueling missions. Through FFR, the demonstration of Motiv’s robotic arm operations in space will begin to push open the door to endless possibilities.
NASA’s Fly Foundational Robots demonstration is funded through the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate’s ISAM portfolio and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Motiv Space Systems of Pasadena, California, will supply the mission’s robotic arm system through a NASA Small Business Innovation Research Phase III award. Astro Digital of Littleton, Colorado, will flight test Motiv’s robotic payload through NASA’s Flight Opportunities program managed by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
The asteroid Bennu continues to provide new clues to scientists’ biggest questions about the formation of the early solar system and the origins of life. As part of the ongoing study of pristine samples delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft, three new papers published Tuesday by the journals Nature Geosciences and Nature Astronomy present remarkable discoveries: sugars essential for biology, a gum-like substance not seen before in astromaterials, and an unexpectedly high abundance of dust produced by supernova explosions.
Sugars essential to life
Scientists led by Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University in Japan found sugars essential for biology on Earth in the Bennu samples, detailing their findings in the journal Nature Geoscience. The five-carbon sugar ribose and, for the first time in an extraterrestrial sample, six-carbon glucose were found. Although these sugars are not evidence of life, their detection, along with previous detections of amino acids, nucleobases, and carboxylic acids in Bennu samples, show building blocks of biological molecules were widespread throughout the solar system.
For life on Earth, the sugars deoxyribose and ribose are key building blocks of DNA and RNA, respectively. DNA is the primary carrier of genetic information in cells. RNA performs numerous functions, and life as we know it could not exist without it. Ribose in RNA is used in the molecule’s sugar-phosphate “backbone” that connects a string of information-carrying nucleobases.
“All five nucleobases used to construct both DNA and RNA, along with phosphates, have already been found in the Bennu samples brought to Earth by OSIRIS-REx,” said Furukawa. “The new discovery of ribose means that all of the components to form the molecule RNA are present in Bennu.”
The discovery of ribose in asteroid samples is not a complete surprise. Ribose has previously been found in two meteorites recovered on Earth. What is important about the Bennu samples is that researchers did not find deoxyribose. If Bennu is any indication, this means ribose may have been more common than deoxyribose in environments of the early solar system.
Researchers think the presence of ribose and lack of deoxyribose supports the “RNA world” hypothesis, where the first forms of life relied on RNA as the primary molecule to store information and to drive chemical reactions necessary for survival.
A team of Japanese and US scientists have discovered the bio-essential sugars ribose and glucose in samples of asteroid Bennu that were collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. This finding builds on the earlier discovery of nucleobases (the genetic components of DNA and RNA), phosphate, and amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) in the Bennu samples, showing that the molecular ingredients of life could have been delivered to early Earth by meteorites. Download this graphic from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio website: https://ift.tt/3pJD467
NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Dan Gallagher
“Present day life is based on a complex system organized primarily by three types of functional biopolymers: DNA, RNA, and proteins,” explains Furukawa. “However, early life may have been simpler. RNA is the leading candidate for the first functional biopolymer because it can store genetic information and catalyze many biological reactions.”
The Bennu samples also contained one of the most common forms of “food” (or energy) used by life on Earth, the sugar glucose, which is the first evidence that an important energy source for life as we know it was also present in the early solar system.
Mysterious, ancient ‘gum’
A second paper, in the journal Nature Astronomy led by Scott Sandford at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and Zack Gainsforth of the University of California, Berkeley, reveals a gum-like material in the Bennu samples never seen before in space rocks – something that could have helped set the stage on Earth for the ingredients of life to emerge. The surprising substance was likely formed in the early days of the solar system, as Bennu’s young parent asteroid warmed.
Once soft and flexible, but since hardened, this ancient “space gum” consists of polymer-like materials extremely rich in nitrogen and oxygen. Such complex molecules could have provided some of the chemical precursors that helped trigger life on Earth, and finding them in the pristine samples from Bennu is important for scientists studying how life began and whether it exists beyond our planet.
On this primitive asteroid that formed in the early days of the solar system, we’re looking at events near the beginning of the beginning.
Scott SandFord
Astrophysicist, NASA's Ames Research Center
Bennu’s ancestral asteroid formed from materials in the solar nebula – the rotating cloud of gas and dust that gave rise to the solar system – and contained a variety of minerals and ices. As the asteroid began to warm, due to natural radiation, a compound called carbamate formed through a process involving ammonia and carbon dioxide. Carbamate is water soluble, but it survived long enough to polymerize, reacting with itself and other molecules to form larger and more complex chains impervious to water. This suggests that it formed before the parent body warmed enough to become a watery environment.
“With this strange substance, we’re looking at, quite possibly, one of the earliest alterations of materials that occurred in this rock,” said Sandford. “On this primitive asteroid that formed in the early days of the solar system, we’re looking at events near the beginning of the beginning.”
Using an infrared microscope, Sandford’s team selected unusual, carbon-rich grains containing abundant nitrogen and oxygen. They then began what Sandford calls “blacksmithing at the molecular level,” using the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) in Berkeley, California. Applying ultra-thin layers of platinum, they reinforced a particle, welded on a tungsten needle to lift the tiny grain, and shaved the fragment down using a focused beam of charged particles.
A microscopic particle of asteroid Bennu, brought to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, is manipulated under a transmission electron microscope. In order to move the fragment for further analysis, researchers first reinforced it with thin strips of platinum (the “L” shape on the particle’s surface) then welded a tungsten microneedle to it. The asteroid fragment measures 30 micrometers (about one-one thousandth of an inch) across.
NASA/University of California, Berkeley
When the particle was a thousand times thinner than a human hair, they analyzed its composition via electron microscopy at the Molecular Foundry and X-ray spectroscopy at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source. The ALS’s high spatial resolution and sensitive X-ray beams enabled unprecedented chemical analysis.
“We knew we had something remarkable the instant the images started to appear on the monitor,” said Gainsforth. “It was like nothing we had ever seen, and for months we were consumed by data and theories as we attempted to understand just what it was and how it could have come into existence.”
The team conducted a slew of experiments to examine the material’s characteristics. As the details emerged, the evidence suggested the strange substance had been deposited in layers on grains of ice and minerals present in the asteroid.
It was also flexible – a pliable material, similar to used gum or even a soft plastic. Indeed, during their work with the samples, researchers noticed the strange material was bendy and dimpled when pressure was applied. The stuff was translucent, and exposure to radiation made it brittle, like a lawn chair left too many seasons in the sun.
“Looking at its chemical makeup, we see the same kinds of chemical groups that occur in polyurethane on Earth,” said Sandford, “making this material from Bennu something akin to a ‘space plastic.’”
The ancient asteroid stuff isn’t simply polyurethane, though, which is an orderly polymer. This one has more “random, hodgepodge connections and a composition of elements that differs from particle to particle,” said Sandford. But the comparison underscores the surprising nature of the organic material discovered in NASA’s asteroid samples, and the research team aims to study more of it.
By pursuing clues about what went on long ago, deep inside an asteroid, scientists can better understand the young solar system – revealing the precursors to and ingredients of life it already contained, and how far those raw materials may have been scattered, thanks to asteroids much like Bennu.
Abundant supernova dust
Another paper in the journal Nature Astronomy, led by Ann Nguyen of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, analyzed presolar grains – dust from stars predating our solar system – found in two different rock types in the Bennu samples to learn more about where its parent body formed and how it was altered by geologic processes. It is believed that presolar dust was generally well-mixed as our solar system formed. The samples had six-times the amount of supernova dust than any other studied astromaterial, suggesting the asteroid’s parent body formed in a region of the protoplanetary disk enriched in the dust of dying stars.
The study also reveals that, while Bennu’s parent asteroid experienced extensive alteration by fluids, there are still pockets of less-altered materials within the samples that offer insights into its origin.
An artistic visualization of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft descending towards asteroid Bennu to collect a sample.
NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
“These fragments retain a higher abundance of organic matter and presolar silicate grains, which are known to be easily destroyed by aqueous alteration in asteroids,” said Nguyen. “Their preservation in the Bennu samples was a surprise and illustrates that some material escaped alteration in the parent body. Our study reveals the diversity of presolar materials that the parent accreted as it was forming.”
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center provided overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provided flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace were responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Curation for OSIRIS-REx takes place at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and asteroid sample science collaboration with JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s) Hayabusa2 mission. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information on the OSIRIS-REx mission, visit:
On Nov. 2, 2025, NASA honored 25 years of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station. What began as a fragile framework of modules has evolved into a springboard for international cooperation, advanced scientific research and technology demonstrations, the development of a low Earth orbit economy, and NASA’s next great leaps in exploration, including crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.
The first expedition
The Expedition One crew in the Zvezda Service module aboard the International Space Station. From left: commander William Shepherd, Soyuz commander Yuri Gidzenko and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev.
NASA
This legacy of achievement in global human endeavors began with the first crew’s arrival to the space station on Nov. 2, 2000. Expedition 1 crew members NASA astronaut William M. Shepherd and Russian Aviation and Space Agency, now Roscosmos, cosmonauts Yuri P. Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan two days prior. After a successful docking, the crew transferred aboard the station and began bringing it to life. Their primary tasks during their four-month mission included installing and activating the life support and communications systems and working with three visiting space shuttle crews to continue the station’s assembly. The trio returned to Earth in March 2001 aboard space shuttle Discovery, after having turned the station over to the Expedition 2 crew.
(Space)walking into history
NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan conducts a spacewalk at the Port- 6 truss structure work site to upgrade International Space Station systems.
NASA/Christina Koch
Assembly and maintenance of the International Space Station would not be possible without the skilled work of crew members performing intricate tasks, in bulky spacesuits, in the harsh environment of space. In addition to station upkeep, spacewalks provide a platform for testing and improving spacesuits and tools – critical information for future exploration of the Moon and Mars. Other spacewalks have included operations for scientific research. In Jan. 2025, for example, crew members collected samples for an investigation examining whether microorganisms have exited through station vents and can survive in space, to better inform spacecraft design that helps prevent human contamination of Mars and other destinations.
More than 270 spacewalks dedicated to the space station have been accomplished in the last quarter century. Several made station and human spaceflight history:
May 1999: NASA astronaut Tamara Jernigan became the first woman to complete a spacewalk at the space station, in support of its construction.
September 2000: Also during space station assembly, NASA astronaut Edward T. “Ed” Lu and Roscosmos cosmonaut Yuri I. Malenchenko conducted the first U.S.-Russian spacewalk.
March 10, 2001: NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms set the record for longest spacewalk in U.S. history, at 8 hours and 56 minutes.
First spacewalks by international partners included:
April 2001 – Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield
July 2005 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi
Aug. 2006 – European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter
Feb. 26, 2004: NASA astronaut Mike Foale and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Y. Kaleri complete the first spacewalk with no one inside the station.
Oct. 18, 2019: The first all-female spacewalk in history, conducted by NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir.
Orbiting laboratory welcomes first commercial crew
The Expedition 63 crew expanded to five members with the arrival of NASA’s SpaceX Crew Dragon on May 31, 2020. From left: Anatoly Ivanishin, Ivan Vagner, Chris Cassidy, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.
NASA
The International Space Station welcomed its first commercial crew members on May 31, 2020, when former NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley joined Expedition 63 Commander and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner aboard the orbiting laboratory.
Behnken and Hurley lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida the day before on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 test flight – the first launch of American astronauts from U.S. soil since the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011.
The duo quickly integrated with the rest of the crew and participated in a number of scientific experiments, spacewalks, and public engagement events during their 62 days aboard station. Overall, the pair spent 64 days in orbit, completed 1,024 orbits around Earth, and contributed more than 100 hours of time to supporting the orbiting laboratory’s investigations before splashing down on Aug. 2.
Successful completion of the Demo-2 mission paved the way for regular SpaceX flights carrying astronauts to and from the space station. With another certified crew transportation system in place, the International Space Station Program added research time and increased the opportunity for discovery aboard humanity’s testbed for exploration, including preparations for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.
Frank Rubio’s record-breaking year in space
NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Frank Rubio inside the cupola, the International Space Station’s “window to the world,” as the orbiting laboratory flew 263 miles above southeastern England on Oct. 1, 2022.
NASA/Frank Rubio
On Sept. 27, 2023, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio returned to Earth after spending 371 days aboard the International Space Station—the longest single spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut in history. His mission surpassed the previous record of 355 days, set by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, and provided scientists with an unprecedented look at how the human body adapts to more than a year in microgravity.
Rubio’s record-setting mission supported six human research studies, including investigations into diet, exercise, and overall physiology and psychology. He was the first astronaut to test whether limited workout equipment could still maintain health and fitness, an important consideration for future spacecraft with tighter living quarters. He also contributed biological samples, surveys, and tests for NASA’s Spaceflight Standard Measures, a study that collects health data from astronauts to better understand how the body adapts to space—knowledge that helps prepare crews for the Artemis campaign to the Moon and future trips to Mars.
Alongside his fellow crew members, Rubio participated in dozens of investigations and technology demonstrations, from growing tomato plants with hydroponic and aeroponic techniques to materials science experiments that advance spacecraft design.
Long-duration missions help inform future spaceflight and lay the groundwork for the next era of human exploration.
A global foundation for growing a low Earth orbit economy
Facilities around the world support the operation and management of the International Space Station.
NASA
The space station is one of the most ambitious international collaborations ever attempted. It brings together international flight crews, multiple launch vehicles, globally distributed launch and flight operations, training, engineering, and development facilities, communications networks, and the international scientific research community for the benefit of all humanity.
An international partnership of space agencies operates the elements of the orbiting laboratory: NASA, Roscosmos, ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). Each partner takes primary responsibility for managing and running the station hardware it provides, as well as on-Earth construction, launch support, mission operations, communications, and research and technology facilities that support the station.
At least 290 individuals representing 26 countries, and the five international partners have visited the orbiting laboratory during its 25 years of continuous human presence. Some of those visitors flew to the station on private astronaut missions. These missions contribute to scientific, outreach, and commercial activities. They also help demonstrate the demand for future commercial space stations and are an important component of NASA’s strategy for enabling a robust and competitive commercial economy in low Earth orbit.
The results of the international partnership created through the space station and its accomplishments exemplifies how countries can work together to overcome complex challenges and achieve collaborative goals.
