It’s been a big year for the International Space Station (ISS) with countless research experiments performed, visits from astronauts other than the station partners along with spaceflight participants.
NASA describes 2021 on the ISS as follows:
“It has been a busy year of research aboard the International Space Station. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1, Crew-2, and Crew-3 missions supported hundreds of science experiments aboard the orbiting laboratory. Multiple Soyuz spacecrafts carried astronauts to and from station. An upgraded cargo Dragon spacecraft returned time sensitive research to scientists on the ground. Astronauts and cosmonauts conducted 13 spacewalks, and their work included installing new solar panels to augment and upgrade the station’s power supply. Chiles and lettuce were harvested as a part of plant research preparing us for deep space missions, and technologies were tested for the upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon. Look at some of the best photos of breakthrough investigations crew members worked on in 2021.”