The space station just did something for the first time in its history

The International Space Station (ISS) has been orbiting Earth for the last quarter of a century.

But it was only this week that all eight of its docking ports were filled at the same time. Recommended Videos

The spacecraft currently docked at the orbital outpost are: two SpaceX Dragons, a Cygnus XL, JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) HTV-X1, two Russian Soyuz crew spacecraft, and two Russian Progress cargo ships.

The record-breaking moment came on Monday with the reinstallation of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft to the Earth-facing port of the station’s Unity module.

The Cygnus XL arrived at the station in September but briefly undocked last month to make way for the arrival of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying one NASA astronaut and two Roscosmos cosmonauts.