For the First Time, the ISS Has 8 Spacecraft Docked Simultaneously

[jemhouston]

https://www.extremetech.com/aerospace/f ... ltaneously

For the First Time, the ISS Has 8 Spacecraft Docked Simultaneously
The station is so crowded that a temporary separation was required to make room for an incoming Russian vessel.
By Jon Martindale December 3, 2025





Credit: Dima_zel/Getty Images

The International Space Station has been consistently occupied since the Expedition 1 crew arrived in November 2000, but sometimes it gets a little busier than others. At the moment, eight spacecraft are docked with the ISS, requiring all its docking ports. This is a first in its 25-year history, NASA reports.

The ISS is currently playing host to Russian spacecraft Soyuz MS-27, connected to the Russian Prichal module; Russian MS-28, attached to the Rassvet module; Northrop Grumman's Cygnus-23 cargo module, attached to the station's Unity module; the Russian robotic cargo spacecraft Progress-92 and Progress-93, both attached to the Russian Poisk and Zvezda modules; and the Japanese HTV-X1 cargo craft, which is connected to the nadir port of the Harmony Node 2. There are a pair of SpaceX Dragon capsules (Crew-11 and CRS-33) docked with the Harmony module, too.

This is all so much that NASA recently had to make some maneuvers to allow the MS-28 spacecraft to dock safely. It used the ISS's robotic Canadarm2 to move the Cygnus-23 module, providing the Russian spacecraft with additional clearance for a safe docking procedure. Cygnus was then reinstated at the Unity module's docking port.




Diagram of the ISS with docked spacecraft.
Credit: NASA

The number of docked spacecraft will come down to seven when the Soyuz MS-27 craft departs with NASA's Jonny Kim and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky on Dec. 8. It's unlikely to be replaced by another Russian spacecraft anytime soon. Russia recently lost its ability to launch manned ISS missions after its Baikonur Cosmodrome suffered damage to its launch platform when someone forgot to close the blast shield during a launch.

The next manned spacecraft heading to the ISS is SpaceX Crew-12, though it doesn't yet have a launch date. There's also a Soyuz MS-29 mission scheduled for July, but it may not happen without a launch pad.

[Poohbah]

Do they need to designate one astronaut or cosmonaut as the parking valet?