There are currently a record-breaking number of people in orbit

 It’s a busy time in Earth’s orbit — busier, in fact, than ever before.

Just yesterday, as a Russian Soyuz spacecraft launched a three-person crew to the International Space Station, humanity broke its all-time record for the most people in orbit at the same time, NASA confirmed during a webcast of the event. There are currently 19 people on missions in Earth’s orbit.

They include:

Four Polaris Dawn crew members: Billionaire Jared Isaacman, former Air Force pilot, Scott “Kidd” Poteet, and two SpaceX engineers, Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis

Seven staff members aboard the ISS: NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps and Tracy Caldwell Dyson, as well as Nikolai Chub, Oleg Kononenko and Alexander Grebenkin of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos

Three taikonauts aboard China’s Tiangong space station: Li Guangsu, Li Cong and Ye Guangfu

Two test pilots that led the Boeing Starliner flight to the ISS: NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams

And the three-person crew of the Soyuz mission who just arrived at the ISS for a crew swap: NASA’s Don Pettit and Roscosmos’ Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner

To be clear: More people have been in space at the same time before — but not in orbit.

For a few minutes on January 26, 2024, for example, there were a total of 20 people in space, but that count included six people on board a suborbital Virgin Galactic space tourism flight