For avid fans of spaceflight, watching the holiday festivities on the International Space Station (ISS) has become a bit of a tradition in recent years. Remarkably, the very first Christmas on the ISS was also the last Christmas of the 20th century. But even by 2000, having crews in orbit during Christmas had already become routine thanks in large part to the Russian Mir space station which had started regularly hosting crews over the holiday season starting in 1987.

The first crew to spend Christmas on the ISS was Expedition 1 who arrived aboard Soyuz TM-31 on November 2, 2000 two days after launch. The expedition commander was American astronaut William Shepherd who was a former Navy SEAL and the veteran of three Space Shuttle missions with a total of two weeks experience in orbit. The flight engineer was Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev with about 16 month’s worth of flight experience on four space missions including two long duration stays on Mir and a pair of flights on the American Space Shuttle. Krikalev had visited the ISS earlier as part of the STS-88 crew in December 1998 for the first American flight to the new station. The Soyuz command pilot was Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko who had about six months of flight experience as part of the Mir’s EO-20 long-duration crew launched in 1995.

The ISS that greeted Expedition 1 was very different from the ISS of today. At this early stage, it consisted of the original Russian Zarya module launched in November 1998, the American Unity module brought up by STS-88 the following month and the Russian Zvezda module launched in July 2000 (see “A Little Piece of the ISS”). With the arrival of Zvezda with its extra docking ports, support systems and living quarters, the ISS was finally ready to host a long duration crew. Expedition 1 was kept busy on the ISS, commonly known then by its call sign “Alpha”, performing some initial experiments as well as maintaining the space station and themselves during their 140-day mission.

Their first visitor to the ISS, the unmanned Progress M1-4 cargo ship, arrived on November 18 after Gidzenko had to dock it manually when the Kurs automatic docking system had failed during the initial approach. After its supplies had been unpacked, Progress was undocked two weeks later and placed into a nearby storage orbit. This cleared the way for the STS-97 shuttle mission which reached the ISS the next day on December 2. In total, almost eight metric tons of supplies and equipment were delivered including the first pair of US-supplied solar arrays for the power-starved ISS. After three EVAs to install the new equipment, the Space Shuttle Endeavour left the ISS with Expedition 1 still on board on December 9.

The following weeks saw the crew of Expedition 1 powering up systems in all three ISS modules for the first time, installing new equipment and taking care of the usual assortment of problems including the issues with the Kurs docking system. On December 20, Russian ground controllers started maneuvering Progress M1-4 out of its temporary storage orbit and back towards the ISS for redocking later in the week. On December 22, Shepherd, Krikalev and Gidzenko sent back to Earth their official holiday greeting video as the “most forward deployed citizens of the Earth at this moment.” They stated that they are “well started on our journey of exploration and discovery, building a foothold for men and women who will voyage and live in places far away from the planet Earth.” The crew expressed its “hope that the goodwill and purpose on the station may enrich the holiday spirit for all on the good planet Earth” (click on the still image below to download the video from NASA’s archive).

Over the course of the next three days, the crew’s duties were relatively light and they rested on December 24 and 25. This would be Krikalev’s third Christmas in orbit having already spent the Christmas of 1988 and 1991 on board the Soviet Mir space station. This tied Krikalev for the record with fellow Russian cosmonaut, Sergei Avdeyev (1992, ’95 and ’98 on Mir). Later, Aleksandr Kaleri (1996 on Mir, 2003 and ’10 on ISS) and Scott Kelly (1999 on the STS-103 mission, 2010 and ’15 on ISS) would tie Krikalev’s record.

For this first Christmas on the ISS, there was no tree like those of later years. According to the official NASA statement, “the crew spent a quiet Christmas, talking to their families, opening presents on board and receiving a holiday greeting on Christmas Day from NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin.” Unofficially, a Russian flight director speculated at the time that the Expedition 1 crew might have smuggled some alcohol aboard their Soyuz for their celebrations as some earlier Mir crews had done.

By the next day, the ISS crew was back to work. On December 26, Gidzenko manually redocked Progress M1-4 at Zvezda’s nadir port using the TORU docking system. The Progress now offered additional stores of propellants for maneuvering the ISS as well as a place to stow rubbish. As the end of the 20th century approached, the crew spent a relaxing New Year’s Eve holding private conferences with their families as they prepared for the busy weeks ahead including the arrival of the STS-98 mission in less than six weeks. In keeping with naval tradition, Expedition 1 commander, Bill Shepherd, wrote the following log entry for the opening of the New Year (as well as the new century):

In longstanding naval tradition, the first entry in a ship’s log for the New Year is always recorded in prose. We would like to share with all, the entry being made in the log tonight as ‘Alpha’ salutes the New Year-

SHIP’S LOG 0000 01 JAN 2001

We sail onboard space station “Alpha”

Orbiting high above Earth, still in night

Traveling our destined journey

beyond realm of sea voyage or flight

A first New Year is upon us

Eight strikes on the bell now as one

The globe spins below on its motion

Counting the last thousand years done.

15 midnights to this night in orbit

A clockwork not of earthly pace

Our day with different meaning now

In this, a new age and place

We move with a speed and time

Past that which human hands can tell

Computers programmed-like boxes

Where only thoughts’ shadows dwell

“Central post” our ship’s bridge aboard

Screens dancing shapes in pale glow

We guide her course by electronic pulse

In figures no compass could show

Our panels set as sails to the Sun

With wake not ever seen but there

Only gyros feel the silent tugs

Wisps, swirls of such ocean rare

On this ship’s deck sits no helm now

Rudder, sheet, and rig long since gone

But here still– a pull to go places

Beyond lines where sky meets the dawn

Though star trackers mark Altair and Vega

Same as mariners eyed long ago

We are still as wayfinders of knowledge

Seeking new things that mankind shall know.

We commend to crews that will follow

Merit of the good ship we sail

Let Sun shine strong on Alpha’s wings

A symbol, and bright star we long hail.

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Related Reading

“Christmas 1973 on Skylab”, Drew Ex Machina, December 24, 2014 [Post]

“A Little Piece of the ISS”, Drew Ex Machina, April 5, 2014 [Post]

General References

Neville Kidger, “A Chronology of the International Space Station Orbital Operations”, Spaceflight, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 19-21, January 2001

Neville Kidger, “A Chronology of the International Space Station Orbital Operations”, Spaceflight, Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 62-65, February 2001

Neville Kidger, “A Chronology of the International Space Station Orbital Operations”, Spaceflight, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 105-109, March 2001

“International Space Station Status Report #00-63”, NASA, December 26, 2000

“International Space Station Status Report #00-64”, NASA, December 31, 2000