Japanese astronaut eyes typhoon from orbit | On the International Space Station Oct. 6 - 10, 2025

Science and maintenance work continued this week aboard the International Space Station, but updates regarding those activities have been all but halted by the U.S. government shutdown. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui's social media posts were the exception...

Orbital observation

Expedition 73 flight engineer Kimiya Yui of JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) saw not one but two typhoons this week from aboard the International Space Station. (Typhoons are the same weather phenomenon as hurricanes: both are tropical cyclones. This type of powerful storm is called a hurricane in the Atlantic and central and eastern North Pacific regions, and a typhoon in the Northwest Pacific.)

"The eye of Typhoon 22 has become somewhat unclear, but it still appears to be maintaining its strong intensity as before," wrote Yui on social media on Thursday (Oct. 9). "Typhoon 23 is a bit distant, but it is swirling with thick rain clouds on its southern side."

"Stay safe while keeping up with the latest typhoon information!" he said.

Astronaut activity

Yui worked with his Expedition 73 crewmates and ground controllers to check out PROX, a device that will be used when Japan's next-generation cargo vehicle, the HTV-X, approaches the International Space Station for berthing.

"Preparations to welcome HTV-X to the ISS are steadily progressing," wrote Yui in a social media post on Oct. 8, 2025. "Here's the news: just like with Kounotori-kun, I've been assigned to operate the arm and grasp it this time as well. The responsibility is significant, but I'll cooperate with everyone to reliably carry out the mission!"

By the numbers

As of Friday (Oct. 10), there are 7 people aboard the International Space Station: Expedition 73 commander Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos; fellow cosmonauts Alexey Zubritsky and Oleg Platonov; Jonny Kim, Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke of NASA; and Kimiya Yui of JAXA, all flight engineers.

There are two docked crew spacecraft: SpaceX's Dragon "Endeavour" attached to the zenith port of the Harmony module and Roscosmos' Soyuz MS-27 attached to the Earth-facing port of the Prichal node.

There are four docked cargo spacecraft: Roscosmos' Progress MS-31 (92P) docked to the space-facing port of the Poisk module and Progress M-32 (93P) docked to the aft port of the Zvezda service module, SpaceX's CRS-33 Dragon spacecraft docked to the forward port of Harmony Node 2 and Northrop Grumman's NG-23 Cygnus XL, the "SS William C. 'Willie' McCool," berthed to the Unity node.

As of Friday, the space station has been continuously crewed for 24 years, 11 months and 8 days.