International Space Station welcomes NASA astronaut Chris Williams and cosmonaut companions

The command at the International Space Station (ISS) is in the process of changing, and three new crew members have just been welcomed to the outpost. In the most recent arrival, NASA astronaut Chris Williams, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, safely reached the ISS on Thursday, November 27, 2025. Their arrival increased the orbiting laboratory crew to ten members for the next two weeks, according to NASA. 

Williams, Kud-Sverchkov, and Mikaev launched aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:27 a.m. EST. The spacecraft docked at 7:34 a.m. at the Rassvet module of the space station after a three-hour, two-orbit journey. Following the opening of the hatch at 10:16 a.m. EST, the Expedition 73 crew welcomed the new members. Expedition 73 includes NASA astronauts Mike Fincke, Zena Cardman, and Jonny Kim; JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui; and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky, and Oleg Platonov. Expedition 74 is scheduled to begin on Monday, December 8, 2025, once Fincke takes over the station leadership from Ryzhikov, who will depart along with Kim and Zubritsky. The change of command ceremony will be on Sunday, December 7, 2025, at 10:25 a.m.

During his stay on board the ISS, Williams will be conducting scientific research and technology demonstrations that will help benefit life on Earth and advance human space exploration. He will help to install and test a new modular workout system for long-duration missions, support experiments to improve cryogenic fuel efficiency, and grow semiconductor crystals in space.

Williams will also assist NASA in formulating new re-entry safety protocols to protect the crew of future missions. As Williams made the journey on Thanksgiving Day, his uncle Juan, a civil rights historian, couldn't help but become emotional.

"The kid who played basketball in the driveway with his cousins before Thanksgiving dinner is now a flight engineer on the three-man crew for Expedition 74," he wrote in a recent column for The Hill. "Chris's incredible trip to space is rooted in incredible family trips. His grandmother took a voyage to a new world in 1958. She traveled with three children on a freighter boat carrying bananas from Panama to Brooklyn, New York. This Thanksgiving, I am grateful to live in a country where the grandson of Panamanian immigrants can represent America in the heavens, on a mission of peace and science." 

The spacecraft flew under the call sign “Gyrfalcon,” with a bird of prey also gracing their mission patch. The zero-g indicators were a ginger cat named "Gizmo," gifted by one of the cosmonaut's families, and a knitted cosmonaut from students attending school in Gagarin, Russia. "This is my second Thanksgiving in space, so I highly recommend it," said Fincke in a NASA video. "This time it is going to be with a new Soyuz crew, and we're getting food ready, so we have the traditions like turkey [and] there is some cranberry sauce here," he added. 

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