Three astronauts flew to the International Space Station (ISS) early on September 12 (Hanoi time), bringing the total number of people in Earth’s orbit to 19.
The Russian Soyuz spacecraft launched into space on September 11 and docked with the ISS at 2:32 AM on September 12 (Hanoi time), carrying NASA astronaut Don Pettit and two Russian astronauts, Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner.
The International Space Station (ISS) with six spacecraft docked on September 11. (Photo: NASA).
“With the new trio in orbit, the total number of people in orbit has reached a record 19“, stated Anna Schneider, a NASA commentator, during the live broadcast of the Soyuz launch. The previous record was 17 people, set last year.
Pettit, Ovchinin, and Vagner will work alongside the 9 astronauts who have been on the ISS prior, including 6 NASA astronauts: Michael Barratt, Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Barry Wilmore, and Suni Williams, as well as 3 Russian astronauts: Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko.
Wilmore and Williams flew to the ISS in June aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. This was the first crewed test flight of the Starliner. The mission was initially expected to last about 10 days, but the Starliner encountered propulsion issues in orbit, preventing the astronaut duo from returning as planned. Ultimately, NASA decided to send the empty Starliner back to Earth last weekend. Williams and Wilmore will return home on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon in February next year.
Additionally, there are three astronauts currently living on China’s Tiangong space station: Li Cong, Li Guangsu, and Ye Guangfu. They arrived at the Tiangong station aboard the Shenzhou 18 spacecraft in April this year.
The final four astronauts among the 19 in orbit are Jared Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menon. They are flying on the Crew Dragon spacecraft launched on September 10, executing the private Polaris Dawn mission lasting 5 days. Their Crew Dragon, named Resilience, has set a record for traveling farther from Earth than any crewed spacecraft since the last Apollo astronauts flew to the Moon. Resilience orbited in an elliptical path with a peak altitude of 1,400.7 km.
The record for the highest number of people in space at one time is 20, established in May 2023 and later matched on January 26 this year. In both instances, there were 14 astronauts in orbit and 6 space tourists in suborbital flight aboard Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity spacecraft.
