AUDIO: We have contact. We have initial contact – initial contact of the Soyuz capsule with the Expedition 1 crew to the International Space Station.

A key milestone in the human exploration of space took place 25 years ago tomorrow. The first permanent crew took up residence in the International Space Station. And people have been living on the station ever since.

They weren’t the first to actually visit the station. Several groups of astronauts and cosmonauts had spent time assembling the early pieces of the station. And by November 2000, it was ready for full-time occupancy.

The Expedition 1 crew was commanded by American astronaut Bill Shepherd, and included Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko. They launched on October 31st, from Kazakhstan:

AUDIO: 4, 3, 2, 1, we have ignition – we have ignition and liftoff. Liftoff of the Soyuz rocket, beginning the first expedition to the International Space Station and setting the stage for permanent human presence in space.

After arrival, they had a lot of work to do to get the station ready, as Shepherd described a decade later:

SHEPHERD: So the first week was really living in a sleeping bag, running around with a checklist and a bunch of tools, trying to get this stuff all to get cranking.

Shepherd and crew spent more than four months getting the station cranking. Since then, almost 300 people from more than two dozen countries have lived and worked there – an unbroken presence in space.

Script by Damond Benningfield