November 27, 2025

— The first-ever space crew to launch on Thanksgiving Day has made it official: you cannot escape holiday traffic, even if you are in orbit.

To be clear, it was smooth sailing for NASA astronaut Chris Williams and his two Soyuz MS-28 crewmates, Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev, as they completed two revolutions of the planet to arrive at the International Space Station on Thursday (Nov. 27). The trio launched at 4:27 a.m. EST (0927 GMT; 2:27 p.m. local) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

They reached orbit in the usual nine minutes and, with their dashboard-tethered "zero-g indicators" — a crocheted cat named "Gizmo" and a student-made cosmonaut stuffed toy — floating weightless, began the trip to the space station.

They pulled up the ISS at 7:34 a.m. EST (1234 GMT), where for the first time in history, there was only one available parking spot. All seven other docking or berthing ports were either filled, or, in one case, reserved (Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo ship, the S.S. William C. "Willie" McCool, temporarily vacated its adjacent space to ensure ample clearance for the arriving Soyuz and will be re-berthed on Monday).

Soyuz MS-28 docking. Click to enlarge video in new pop-up window. (NASA)

Waiting for Williams, Kud-Sverchkov and Mikayev on the other side of the soon-to-be-opened hatches were the seven members of Expedition 73 and a feast worthy of any Thanksgiving day table (and then some).

Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and flight engineers Alexey Zubritsky and Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos; Jonny Kim, Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke of NASA and JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui have have had all the fixings for a holiday dinner on board since the Cygnus arrived in September.

"We have got everything here from turkey and the traditional things ... some mashed potatoes, to crab meat, salmon and we even have some lobster, which is amazing!" exclaimed Cardman in a recorded video released by NASA.

The food lab at NASA's Johnson Space Center prepared the "Holiday Bulk Overwrapped Bag," which also included turkey, cranberry sauce, hummus, almond butter, clams and oysters, along with candies and icing.

"This is my second Thanksgiving in space, so I highly recommend it," said Fincke. "This time it is going to be with a new Soyuz crew."

Kud-Sverchkov, Mikayev and Williams will be about 10 days into their mission when, in early December, Ryzhikov, Zubritsky and Kim will board Soyuz MS-27 to return to Earth. The three Soyuz MS-28 crewmates, along with Cardman, Fincke, Yui and Platonov, will then begin Expedition 74.

Over the next eight months, Williams will help initiate the use of the European Enhanced Exploration Exercise Device (E4D), a modular workout system for long-duration missions that combines bicycling, rowing and resistive capabilities together with rope pulling and climbing. He will also assist NASA in developing revised re-entry safety protocols for future missions.

Kud-Sverchkov and Mikayev will be the first cosmonauts to test GigaChat, an artificial intelligence (AI) bot that will help the cosmonauts make decisions about the operation of the Russian segment of the station. Kud-Sverchkov will also be the latest cosmonaut to serve as a special correspondent to the TASS news service, filing reports about his and his crewmates' activities.

Soyuz MS-28 is the first spaceflight for Williams and Mikayev and second for Kud-Sverchkov, who logged 185 days in space on the station's Expedition 63/64 crew in 2021. Kud-Sverchkov, 42, worked as a rocket engineer for RSC Energia before becoming a cosmonaut in 2010.

Kud-Sverchkov was the 564th person to launch into orbit, per the Association of Space Explorers' (ASE) Registry of Space Travelers.

Mikayev, 39, was a military pilot in the Russian Air Force when he was recruited by Roscosmos in 2018.

Williams, 42, has a doctorate in physics, studied supernovae using the Very Large Array radio telescope and developed new image guidance techniques for treating cancer. He joined NASA in 2021 and is the second member of his astronaut class ("The Flies") to launch into space.

Mikayev and Williams were the 641st and 642nd people to enter orbit, according to the ASE registry.

Williams is the fifth career astronaut and fourth flown space explorer with the same surname (no relations), making it also the most popular surname in space.

In addition to designing their own mission patch — a circular badge that features a "Gyrfalcon" (a bird of prey that is also Kud-Sverchkov's call sign) — the Soyuz MS-28 crew also had an emblem designed for them. Roscosmos partnered with Tricolor to invite the Russian public to create the "People's Chevron." The winning artist, Irina Kiyan, saw her patch fly to the ISS on Thursday.

The Soyuz MS-28 launch vehicle was decorated with the portraits of the with the colorful drawings of pediatric cancer patients and the portraits of the first astronaut and cosmonauts to live aboard the ISS 25 years ago.

Although not the first crew to celebrate Thanksgiving in space, the Soyuz MS-28 trio are the first to launch on the day of the holiday.

Soyuz MS-28 is Russia's 74th spacecraft in its class to launch for the station since 2000 and the 157th Soyuz to fly since 1967.