The team of the gap station celebrated a multidenominational Christmas this 12 months, striking stockings for Santa along a menorah “lit” with beautiful felt flames. The menorah was once introduced aboard the Global House Station by way of NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and embellished with a felt flame each and every evening when Hanukkah, the Jewish competition, ran previous this December. Felt was once selected as a subject matter for the menorah because of comprehensible restrictions relating to lights fires on spacecraft and house stations.”My husband and little ladies helped make a felt menorah, with lighting for each and every evening, that I will be able to pin directly to have fun with them. So I am excited to do this,” Moghbeli, the second one Iranian-American to succeed in house, stated throughout a press convention in July, as House.com up to now reported. The NASA astronaut added that throughout the festive season right here on Earth, her circle of relatives celebrates each Hanukkah and Christmas, simply as she was once in a position to do in orbit this 12 months.Comparable: NASA astronaut will have fun Hanukkah in house with felt menorahMoghbeli, who additionally celebrated Hanukkah in house by way of spinning a dreidel previous in December, despatched season’s greetings from the ISS to everybody again house on Earth, obviously lacking celebrating the vacations with circle of relatives.”Merry Christmas from the gap station,” the NASA astronaut and ISS flight engineer wrote on her X feed, previously Twitter. “Whilst I particularly leave out my family and friends again house this time of 12 months, I would not industry the original recollections I am making with my house circle of relatives. We now have discovered little tactics to make the vacations really feel like the vacations up right here. Later lately, we will be able to all proportion a vacation meal and adorn cookies in combination.”Merry Christmas from the @Space_Station!Whilst I particularly leave out my family and friends again house this time of 12 months, I wouldn’t industry the original recollections I’m making with my house circle of relatives. We now have discovered little tactics to make the vacations really feel like the vacations up right here. Later lately,… percent.twitter.com/lZygRVTWiqDecember 25, 2023See moreMoghbeli celebrated the vacations with the remainder of the Expedition 70 workforce lately occupying the ISS, together with commander Andreas Mogensen from the Eu House Company, flight engineers Satoshi Furukawa (Japan) and Loral O’Hara (NASA), and Roscosmos or Russian flight engineers Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub. 
A part of the Expedition 70 team at the Global House Station gathers in entrance of stockings and a felt menorah. From left: Satoshi Furukawa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company), Andreas Mogensen (Eu House Company), Loral O’Hara (NASA) and Jasmin Moghbeli (NASA). (Symbol credit score: NASA/ ISS Team)The astronauts took Christmas Day without work to open items and revel in a Christmas dinner, following a hectic week that noticed two shipment spacecraft go away the ISS (SpaceX Dragon and Northrop Grumman Cygnus). The team watched the 1989 slapstick comedy “Nationwide Lampoon’s Christmas Holiday”, and O’Hara celebrated the arriving of her nephew, the NASA astronaut posted on X.Christmas 2023 weekend – one for the books.Friday, the Expedition 70 team and flooring workforce alike were given our collective want for 2 shipment ships to leave house station sooner than the vacations. NG-19 was once launched noon wearing all our trash from the previous six months, and can orbit… percent.twitter.com/OXkxh8YSFtDecember 26, 2023See moreThe Christmas stockings selected by way of the present ISS team won’t had been relatively as festive as the ones hung in homes throughout Earth over Christmas 2023, taking the type of gray and black thermal socks. The team was once in a position so as to add a bit festive cheer to those moderately drab thermal sock stockings by way of donning Santa hats that stand instantly up, because of the microgravity skilled by way of the ISS in low Earth orbit kind of 250 miles (400 kilometers) about our planet.The Expedition 70 team journeyed to the ISS aboard a Soyuz spacecraft (MS-23) on Sept. 27, and is ready to go back to Earth in spring 2024. Expedition 70 commander Mogensen additionally despatched Christmas greetings house forward of his go back to terra firma. “As we orbit top above Earth, I need to ship heat needs to all of you down on Earth in this big day. Whether or not you might be celebrating Christmas or just taking part in the festive spirit, might this particular time convey you pleasure together with your friends and family,” he wrote on X. “Right here at the house station, we have now the twenty fifth of December off to have fun Christmas, the place we proportion particular meals, loosen up, and open applications from our households that got here up with the remaining shipment automobile.”As we mark at the present time in house, might you might have a contented vacation season.”
