Expedition 72 was the 72nd long-duration expedition to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS). The expedition began with the departure of Soyuz MS-25 on 23 September 2024 with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

astronaut Sunita Williams taking over the ISS command. It continued the extensive scientific research conducted aboard the ISS, focusing on biology, human physiology, physics, and materials science. The crew members also maintained and upgraded the space station systems.

Background, Crew, and Events

The expedition consisted of

Roscosmos The State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos", commonly known simply as Roscosmos (), is a State corporation (Russia), state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space science, space flights, List of space agencies, c ...

cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, and Aleksandr Gorbunov, and

astronauts Barry E. Wilmore, Sunita Williams, Donald Pettit, and Nick Hague. Wilmore and Williams arrived at the station on 6 June 2024 for what was expected to be a brief visit as part of the Boeing Crew Flight Test mission. However, their spacecraft experienced technical issues and returned to Earth uncrewed, and Wilmore and Williams were added to the Expedition 71/72 crew. Ovchinin, Vagner, and Pettit arrived at the station on 11 September aboard Soyuz MS-26. Hague and Gorbunov arrived to the station on 29 September aboard

SpaceX Crew-9 SpaceX Crew-9 was the ninth operational NASA Commercial Crew Program flight and the 15th crewed orbital flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft. Originally scheduled to carry a crew of four to the International Space Station (ISS) in mid-August 2024 ...

. The handover between Crew-9 and Crew-8 was far longer than normal. Additional time was needed to reconfigure Crew-8's Dragon capsule to remove the temporary seat structures that were added in case Wilmore and Williams needed to evacuate. The departure was further delayed due to poor weather conditions in the splashdown zones surrounding Florida caused by

Hurricane Milton Hurricane Milton was an extremely powerful and destructive tropical cyclone which in 2024 became the most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded over the Gulf of Mexico, tying with Hurricane Rita in 2005. Milton made landfall on the west coa ...

and several other storms. The cumulative delays caused Crew-8 to become the longest Dragon mission when it departed on 23October. The expedition saw three spacewalks. On 19 December 2024, Ovchinin and Vagner conducted a 7-hour, 17-minute EVA to work on externally mounted science systems. On 16 January 2025, Hague and Williams completed a 6-hour EVA focused on maintenance and upgrades. This was the first full-length EVA by U.S. astronauts in over a year, following a June 2024 incident in which a leak in an

EMU The emu (; ''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is a species of flightless bird endemism, endemic to Australia, where it is the Tallest extant birds, tallest native bird. It is the only extant taxon, extant member of the genus ''Dromaius'' and the ...

cut a spacewalk short. The final EVA took place on 30 January with Williams and Wilmore removing a radio frequency group antenna assembly during a 5-hour, 26-minute spacewalk. During this EVA, Williams set a new record for total spacewalking time by a female astronaut. Williams handed over command of the space station to Ovchinin on 7 March to prepare for her departure. SpaceX Crew-10 arrived at the ISS on 16 March, transporting NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers,

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. This mission featured a shorter than normal handover with Crew-9 of just two days. It was shortened due to a delay in an upcoming supply flight, which necessitated conserving resources like food and a brief window of favorable weather in the Gulf of Mexico for splashdown. Crew-9 departed with Wilmore and Williams on 18 March. Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky, along with NASA astronaut Jonny Kim arrived at the station aboard

Soyuz MS-27 Soyuz MS-27 is a Russian crewed Soyuz spaceflight that launched on 8April 2025 from Site 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, bound for the International Space Station. The spacecraft was launched aboard a Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying three crew mem ...

on 8 April 2025. After a handover period, Ovchinin handed over command of the space station to Onishi on 18 April. The expedition came to a close on 19 April with the departure of Ovchinin, Vagner, and Pettit on Soyuz MS-26.

Crew

Notes

References

{{ISS expeditions NASA 2024 in spaceflight September 2024 Spaceflight Expeditions to the International Space Station