Overview
- All eight ISS docking ports are currently occupied for the first time, with two SpaceX Dragons, JAXA’s HTV‑X1, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL, two Soyuz crew ships, and two Progress cargo freighters attached.
- Soyuz MS‑27 will undock from the Prichal module at 8:41 p.m. EST on Dec. 8 and target a parachute landing at 12:04 a.m. EST on Dec. 9 near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, NASA says.
- After landing, the crew of Jonny Kim, Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky will fly by helicopter to Karaganda, with Kim returning to Houston and the cosmonauts heading to Star City.
- To manage port availability, controllers temporarily moved Cygnus with Canadarm2 to enable a crew docking, then reattached it; the freighter will remain until March 2026 to dispose of about 11,000 pounds of trash on reentry.
- Roscosmos reports damage at Baikonur’s Site 31/6 following the Soyuz MS‑28 launch, leaving the pad out of service pending repairs and injecting uncertainty into near‑term Russian ISS flights.