Expedition 72

Expedition 72 was the 72nd long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The expedition began with the departure of Soyuz MS-25 on 23 September 2024 with NASA astronaut Sunita Williams taking over the ISS command and concluded with the departure of Soyuz MS-26. 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.

The expedition consisted of Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, and Aleksandr Gorbunov, and NASA 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. 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 and several other storms. The cumulative delays caused Crew-8 to become the longest Dragon mission when it departed with NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin on 23 October.

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 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 astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, and 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 Hague, Gorbunov, 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 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.

Events involving crewed spacecraft are listed in bold.

Previous mission: Expedition 71

23 September 2024 - Soyuz MS-25 undocking, official switch from Expedition 71

29 September 2024 - SpaceX Crew-9 docking

23 October 2024 - SpaceX Crew-8 undocking

3 November 2024 - SpaceX Crew-9 redocking

5 November 2024 - CRS SpX-31 docking

19 November 2024 - Progress MS-27 undocking

23 November 2024 - Progress MS-29 docking

16 December 2024 - CRS SpX-31 undocking

19 December 2024 - EVA 1 (VKD-63) Ovchinin/Vagner: 7 hrs, 17 mins

16 January 2025 - EVA 2 (US-91) Hague/Williams: 6 hrs

30 January 2025 - EVA 3 (US-92) Williams/Wilmore: 5 hrs, 26 mins

25 February 2025 - Progress MS-28 undocking

1 March 2025 - Progress MS-30 docking

7 March 2025 - ISS Expedition 72 change of command from Sunita Williams to Aleksey Ovchinin

16 March 2025 - SpaceX Crew-10 docking

18 March 2025 - SpaceX Crew-9 undocking

28 March 2025 - CRS NG-21 unberthing and release

8 April 2025 - Soyuz MS-27 docking

18 April 2025 - ISS Expedition 72/73 change of command from Aleksey Ovchinin to Takuya Onishi

19 April 2025 - Soyuz MS-26 undocking, official switch to Expedition 73

Next mission: Expedition 73

The Prichal aft, forward, starboard, and aft ports all have yet to be used since the module originally docked to the station and are not included in the table.