For the first time in its 25-year history, all eight docking ports on the International Space Station are occupied, according to NASA.
The rare "orbital traffic jam" occurred after Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft was repositioned to the station's Unity module, filling the final open port.
Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL cargo craft is pictured in the grips of the International Space Station Canadarm2 robotic arm. Cygnus XL had been temporarily released from its Earth-facing port on the Unity module to make room for the Soyuz MS-28 crew spacecraft. The orbital outpost was soaring 263 miles above the Pacific Ocean southwest of Galapagos Islands at the time of this photograph. Image courtesy of NASA
NASA said the eight visiting spacecraft currently at the ISS include vehicles from the United States, Russia and Japan. They consist of multiple SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, the Cygnus XL cargo craft, JAXA's new HTV-X1 cargo vehicle, two Russian Soyuz crew spacecraft and two Progress cargo ships.
The map below shows the unusually busy ISS configuration with each port in use.
