In Historic ISS Moment, a Unique Toast

The first astronauts in more than 40 years from India, Poland, and Hungary arrived at the International Space Station on Thursday, ferried there by SpaceX on a private flight. The crew of four will spend two weeks at the orbiting lab, performing dozens of experiments, after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, per the AP. America's most experienced astronaut, Peggy Whitson, is the commander of the visiting crew. She works for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the chartered flight. Besides Whitson, the crew includes India's Shubhanshu Shukla, a pilot in the Indian air force; Hungary's Tibor Kapu, a mechanical engineer; and Poland's Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, a radiation expert and one of the European Space Agency's project astronauts on temporary flight duty.

No one has ever visited the International Space Station from those countries before. The last time anyone rocketed into orbit from those countries was in the late 1970s and '80s, traveling with the Soviets. "It's an honor to have you join our outpost of international cooperation and exploration," NASA's Mission Control radioed from Houston minutes after the linkup high above the North Atlantic. The new arrivals shared hugs and handshakes with the space station's seven full-time residents, celebrating with drink pouches sipped through straws. Six nations were represented, with four astronauts from the US, three from Russia, and one each from Japan, India, Poland, and Hungary.

"It's so great to be here finally. It was a long quarantine," Whitson said, referring to the crew's extra-long isolation before liftoff to stay healthy. They went into quarantine on May 25 and stuck in it as their launch kept getting delayed. The latest postponement was for space s leak monitoring—NASA wanted to make sure everything was safe following repairs to a longtime leak on the Russian side of the outpost. It's the fourth Axiom-sponsored flight to the space station since 2022. The company is one of several that are developing their own space stations due to launch in the coming years. NASA plans to abandon ISS in 2030 after more than three decades of operation, and it's encouraging private ventures to replace it.