June 26, 2025 at 10:46 AM EDT The International Space Station got more international Thursday morning with the arrival of astronauts from three countries making their first visit to the orbiting laboratory aboard the private Axiom Space Ax-4 mission flying on a SpaceX Crew Dragon. Commanding the visiting crew is Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and now Axiom Space employee who is making her fifth trip to the station. She’s leading India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, Poland’s Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski and Hungary’s Tibor Kapu who will stay on board for about two weeks. The quartet launched from Kennedy Space Center early Wednesday making a 28-hour approach to the station docking at 6:31 a.m. It’s the debut visit for the new Dragon spacecraft named Grace as it docked to the space-facing Zenith side of the Harmony port joining Crew Dragon Endurance that has been docked with the station since its arrival with Crew-10 in March. The SpaceX Crew Dragon Grace docked with the International Space Station on Thursday, June 26, 2025. (Handout/NASA) “Grace is happy to be on Harmony,” said Ax-4 commander Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and now Axiom Space employee who is making her fifth visit to the station. “We cannot wait to open the hatch and give you guys a hug. We’ll see you soon,” said NASA’s Nichole Ayers, one of the Crew-10 crew that is now part of Expedition 73 from on board the station. Ax-4 commander Peggy Whitson gets a hug from a member of the Expedition 73 crew on board the International Space Station on Thursday, June 26, 2025. (Handout/NASA) The Ax-4 crew made it out of their spacecraft just before 8:30 a.m. welcomed by the seven members of Expedition 73 and growing the station’s population to 11. A welcome ceremony followed that included Whitson, now a five-time visitor to the station, giving special pins to Shukla, Uznański and Kapu, who became the 634th, 635th and 636th humans to have ever orbited Earth. “First of all, Peggy, welcome back,” said Expedition 73 commander Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). “It’s a great honor and privilege to have such a legendary astronaut like you on board with us, and Tibor, Shuks and Swav, congratulations on you on your first spaceflight. We’ve been waiting for you guys so long, and we are so happy to see you, like all smiling faces.” The launch of Ax-4 was delayed several times because of weather, rocket engine leak repairs and even a leak on the space station. The quartet entered quarantine in late May. “You guys are exceptional hosts, and hopefully you’ll think we’re exceptional guests at the end of a couple of weeks,” Whitson said. Shukla was the first to receive his pin. He, like his other Ax-4 crewmates, became only the second ever person to represent his country in space. “It is a privilege to be amongst the few who have got the chance to see the Earth from a vantage point that I have been able to see now. It has been a wonderful ride,” he said. India, Hungary and Poland’s only other nationally sponsored astronauts flew actually as cosmonauts with the Soviet Union on missions more than 40 years ago in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This is their first visit to the space station, though. Their addition grows the number of countries to 26 that have visited the space station, which has hosted continuous crews since November 2000. Since construction first began in 1998, 288 people have now flown to the station. Axiom Space has been responsible for several countries from that growing list having now flown 14 customers to the station representing 11 countries. That has included astronauts from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey among others. The 11 crew now on board includes three NASA astronauts, three Roscosmos cosmonauts, one from JAXA and now the four from Ax-4 representing Axiom Space, the Indian Space Research Organization, Hungarian in Orbit (HUNOR) and the European Space Agency (ESA). Kapu expanded on the significance of the eclectic crew. “We have so many countries in the same time in the space station, but we also have seven out of 11 who are complete new flyers, which also tells me how much space is expanding toward a new era,” he said. “My heart is so full right now because of you guys. … I’m extremely happy to be here, happy to represent my country. On our ride up, we actually saw our countries. Flying above those it’s truly, truly a special feeling.” For Whitson, this is her second visit to the station as an Axiom employee following her three visits as a NASA astronaut. She already held the record for any American and any woman for number of days spent in space, a tally that has now hit 676 and expected to surpass 690 days before the Ax-4 crew returns to Earth. Before then, the crew is slated to perform more than 60 science and technology experiments for 31 countries. Uznański-Wiśniewski’s ride was actually paid for by the ESA, for whom he is a project astronaut. “This is such a tremendous place for me as an engineer and a scientist. This is an ultimate scientific laboratory,” he said. Former NASA astronaut and Axiom employee Michael López-Alegría, who commanded the Ax-1 and Ax-3 mission, said the crew will have their hands full over the next two weeks. “You really have to hit the ground running,” he said. “You’ve got, in this case, 14 days to get a lot of stuff done. Every detail is preprogrammed by the teams on the ground, working with NASA, and we really have an effort to try to maintain that pace.” His advice to the new visitors was to stay focused, but not get overwhelmed. “You have a huge responsibility. Your family, your colleagues, your space agencies, your nations are really counting on you, but at the same time, try to enjoy it. Try to really soak this in this is generally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”