Science and upkeep work continued this week aboard the Worldwide House Station, however updates relating to these actions have been all however halted by the U.S. authorities shutdown. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui’s social media posts have been the exception…
Orbital remark
Expedition 73 flight engineer Kimiya Yui of JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company) noticed not one however two typhoons this week from aboard the Worldwide House Station. (Typhoons are the identical climate phenomenon as hurricanes: each are tropical cyclones. This sort of highly effective storm is named a hurricane within the Atlantic and central and japanese North Pacific areas, and a hurricane within the Northwest Pacific.)
“The attention of Storm 22 has change into considerably unclear, but it surely nonetheless seems to be sustaining its robust depth as earlier than,” wrote Yui on social media on Thursday (Oct. 9). “Storm 23 is a bit distant, however it’s swirling with thick rain clouds on its southern aspect.”
“Keep secure whereas maintaining with the newest hurricane data!” he stated.
Astronaut exercise
Yui labored along with his Expedition 73 crewmates and floor controllers to take a look at PROX, a tool that shall be used when Japan’s next-generation cargo automobile, the HTV-X, approaches the Worldwide House Station for berthing.
“Preparations to welcome HTV-X to the ISS are steadily progressing,” wrote Yui in a social media put up on Oct. 8, 2025. “Here is the information: identical to with Kounotori-kun, I have been assigned to function the arm and grasp it this time as effectively. The accountability is critical, however I am going to cooperate with everybody to reliably perform the mission!”
By the numbers
As of Friday (Oct. 10), there are 7 folks aboard the Worldwide House Station: Expedition 73 commander Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos; fellow cosmonauts Alexey Zubritsky and Oleg Platonov; Jonny Kim, Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke of NASA; and Kimiya Yui of JAXA, all flight engineers.
There are two docked crew spacecraft: SpaceX‘s Dragon “Endeavour” connected to the zenith port of the Concord module and Roscosmos’ Soyuz MS-27 connected to the Earth-facing port of the Prichal node.
There are 4 docked cargo spacecraft: Roscosmos’ Progress MS-31 (92P) docked to the space-facing port of the Poisk module and Progress M-32 (93P) docked to the aft port of the Zvezda service module, SpaceX’s CRS-33 Dragon spacecraft docked to the ahead port of Concord Node 2 and Northrop Grumman’s NG-23 Cygnus XL, the “SS William C. ‘Willie’ McCool,” berthed to the Unity node.
As of Friday, the house station has been repeatedly crewed for 24 years, 11 months and eight days.
