Supporting the International Space Station is an around-the-clock responsibility for NASA and its international partners. This means there is always a team of flight operations and payload personnel working with the orbiting laboratory’s crew – including overnight, on weekends, and during the holidays.

At Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston, flight directors organize fun activities to help these teams build camaraderie and celebrate holidays while they work, no matter the hour.

“Working in mission control is a very rewarding job, but it also demands a lot from flight controllers and leads to time away from family,” said Fiona Antkowiak, a flight director in the MCC. “We really want to make the holiday shifts in MCC extra special.”

Antkowiak recalled working Christmas 2018 as a space station flight controller. That year, teams participated in a friendly cookie-decorating competition, with the three different MCC shifts going head-to-head. When flight directors started brainstorming festive ideas for the 2024 holiday season, Antkowiak suggested reviving the contest and asked the Expedition 72 crew if they would be willing to judge the entries. “They agreed, and also told us they would decorate some cookies for us to judge, too!”

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station often decorate cookies as part of their holiday celebrations and have become adept at manipulating icing in zero gravity. NASA astronaut Nick Hague shared on social media, “It opened up a whole new dimension, quite literally, with layer upon layer of icing.”  

Teams in the MCC in Houston and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center Payload Operations Integration Center in Huntsville, Alabama, were joined by international partners ESA (European Space Agency) and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) from their respective control centers. The decorating began late on Christmas Eve and concluded on Christmas Day, ensuring space station crew members could participate in the fun on their days off.

The 36 entries drew inspiration from traditional holiday imagery, human spaceflight, sports teams, and comic books. Each crew member selected their personal favorite cookie, in addition to choosing an overall winner. Payload Operations Director Jaclyn Poteraj created the winning cookie, depicting an astronaut riding on a reindeer made of cargo transfer bags, which are used to transport cargo to and store it aboard the International Space Station.

“We had a lot of fun figuring out how to mix the colors we wanted for icing, deciding on designs, and ultimately decorating our cookies,” said Antkowiak. “Our team is lucky to have the responsibility of keeping the space station and her crew safe, and I’m glad we can find ways to still celebrate the holidays while at work.”

Enjoy more photos from the cookie-decorating competition below.