Astronauts record fireballs from the ISS station

The image was recorded by Williams at the end of April and recently posted on social network

“As soon as the station flew over West Africa, I saw a bright object below, rushing through the upper atmosphere. Its tail lengthened and broke into many small pieces. I thought it must be a piece of orbital junk or some satellite that disintegrated when entering the Earth’s atmosphere. What a spectacular light show,” Williams described.

Theo Spacethe fireball that Williams saw most likely originated from the Progress launch itself. The upper stage of the Soyuz, the rocket that sent Progress MS-34 into orbit, appeared to reenter the atmosphere just in time to create the light show.

Progress MS-34 launched into space on April 25 and arrived at the ISS two days later, carrying about three tons of food, supplies, and scientific experiment kits. The ship will dock with the station for about 7 months, then separate, plunge into the atmosphere and burn up.

Chris Williams is a “rookie” astronaut on an eight-month mission on the ISS. He arrived at the station by Soyuz MS-28 with two Russian astronauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev on November 27, 2025. According to ReutersRussian space agency Roscosmos later confirmed the launch was successful but caused damage to the launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome (Kazakhstan). The maintenance chamber, or service platform – located in the fire escape trench of Area 31/6 and essential during launch preparations – collapsed. By March, Roscosmos announced it had completed repairs to Area 31/6, the country’s only operating launch pad for human spacecraft.

Williams and two teammates are working on the station with the Crew-12 crew, flying into space on February 13 with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Crew-12 includes astronauts Jessica Meir (NASA), Jack Hathaway (NASA), Sophie Adenot (European Space Agency ESA) and Andrey Fedyaev (Russian space agency Roscosmos).