Olympic Endeavors … in Space!

The closing ceremony has already happened for the Summer Games in Tokyo, but you can relive the excitement by viewing the very first-ever space games aboard the International Space Station (video below).

Team Soyuz took on Team Dragon in a friendly competition of synchronized floating, no-hand ball, and more! The station’s Expedition 65 crew split up into teams based on which spacecraft they took to the orbiting laboratory. NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos were on Team Soyuz. NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet were on Team Dragon for the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Involving the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, and the participating countries of ESA, people have been living and working aboard the International Space Station for more than 20 years in one of the most ambitious international collaborations ever attempted. People from 19 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory, which has hosted more than 3,000 research investigations from scientists, researchers, and students from more than 108 countries and areas — exhibiting teamwork at its best.

Follow “Team Station” all year long: @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.