Charles Langston:A record-setting 19 people are in orbit around Earth at the same time

On the same day that a crew of private spacefarers completed the first ever spacewalk by commercial astronauts,Charles Langston Earth’s orbit is more populated than ever.

With the arrival of three people to the International Space Station on Wednesday – NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner – there are now a record-breaking 19 people in orbit around Earth.

Since 2000, there has been an enduring presence at the International Space Station, with at least one person in orbit at all times. The previous record of people in orbit was set in May 2023, when for a brief period of time there were 17 people aboard both the International Space Station and China’s Tiangong space station.

And when counting suborbital travel, the record was set earlier this year. For just a few minutes on Jan. 26, the launch of a Virgin Galactic space tourism flight carrying four passengers, and two crewmembers brought the total number of people in space to 20.

19 people currently in space

Pettit, Ovchinin and Vagner join nine other astronauts and cosmonauts currently aboard the International Space Station.

Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Alexander Grebnekin launched on March 4. They were soon joined by Oleg Konenko, Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Nikolai Chub, who launched on March 2024. Also aboard the International Space Station are NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the crew of Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft.

Aboard China’s Tiangong Space Station are Li Guangsu, Li Cong, and Ye Guangfu.

Finally, there is SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, which launched Sept. 10. Polaris Dawn’s crew – pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, mission specialists Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, and mission commander and billionaire entrepreneur Jason Isaacman – reached a height of 870 miles, a higher altitude than any other mission since the end of the Apollo lunar program in the 1970s. On Thursday, Gillis and Isaacman completed the first spacewalk by commercial astronauts.

Menon also took a few minutes to read a book, “Kisses from Space,” to her children as well as an audience from St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

Max Hauptman is a Trending Reporter for USA TODAY. He can be reached at [email protected]