Most people in orbit at the same time

The most people in Earth orbit simultaneously is 19, achieved on 11 September 2024 following the launch of Soyuz MS-26. The spacecraft, with its three crew, joined the nine people on the International Space Station, the four in Crew Dragon Resilience (the Polaris Dawn private space mission), and the three on the Chinese Tiangong space station.

The full list of astronauts, cosmonauts and taikonauts is the following. The crew of the Soyuz MS-26 (on the way to ISS) were Donald Pettit (USA), Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner (RUS). The crew of the ISS comprised Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and Alexander Grebenkin (all RUS); and Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps (USA); as well as Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams (both USA), who had arrived on the station in June as part of the Boeing Crew Flight Test, but then remained after their spacecraft was deemed too risky for crewed re-entry. The crew of Polaris Dawn were Jared Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon (all USA). The crew of Tiangong were Ye Guangfu, Li Cong and Li Guangsu (all CHN).