Madrid – Nineteen is a record number. That is the number of people currently in space, after the Russian Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft with three crew members on board successfully docked with the International Space Station (EEI).
In total, there are 14 men and five women, and by nationality, 11 are from USAfive of Russia and three of China.
According to the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, and NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, successfully reached the ISS and once on board, the trio joined members of the Expedition 71 crew.
The new members join the team of this expedition that was already on the ISS and which, according to NASA, is made up of American astronauts Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin.
Along with these seven people, there are three others who belong to the Soyuz MS-25 operation and who arrived at the Station on March 23. The team is made up of Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and American Tracy E. Caldwell Dyson.
It should be remembered that the United States and Russia maintain their space cooperation on the International Space Station despite the war in Ukraine. The space agencies of both countries – NASA and Roscosmos – extended their collaboration agreements in December 2023 until at least 2025.
In addition to the ten people already on the ISS, two more must be added: astronauts Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams, members of Boeing’s first manned mission, who have remained on the ISS after the Starliner spacecraft that transported them suffered technical problems.
The Starliner spacecraft returned to Earth on September 7 without its passengers, who will have to wait until February 2025 to return to Earth. According to NASA, Butch and Suni are integrated into the group, are not part of Expedition 71, and will return in February 2025 on a SpaceX ship.
On another space station, the Chinese Tiangong, there are three astronauts (also known as taikonauts) who are part of the Shenzhou 18 mission. They are a team composed of Li Guangsu, Li Cong and Ye Guangfu.
Short walk also historical
Completing the count are the four members of the private Polaris Dawn mission, who have been aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule since last Tuesday. On Thursday, two of them, billionaire Jared Issacman and engineer Sarah Gillis, made history by becoming the first people to take a spacewalk without belonging to a government agency.
The former pilot Scott Poteet and engineer Anna Menon travelled alongside the two stars of the walk, making up the total of 19 people who have been in space this week.
With the end of this mission, which is scheduled to end next Sunday, the 15th, the space record of people orbiting the Earth will be broken.