‘Take care of our station. It’s our everything.’ Russian cosmonaut hands control of ISS over to Japanese astronaut (video)

The keys to the International Space Station just changed hands.

Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos passed control of the orbiting lab over to Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in a change-of-command ceremony this afternoon (April 18).

“Take care of our station,” Ovchinin told Onishi shortly after handing him the symbolic key to the International Space Station (ISS). “It’s our everything.”

“Thank you very much, Alexey,” Onishi replied. “It’s a great honor for me to accept the command of the ISS, and I feel so special that I am taking over the command from you.”

After Onishi said a few more words, the two men embraced, and the rest of the ISS crew applauded.

The ceremony was one of the final orbital events for Ovchinin, fellow cosmonaut Ivan Vagner and NASA’s Don Pettit. The trio arrived at the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on Sept. 11 and are scheduled to depart on Saturday (April 19) at 5:57 p.m. EDT (2157 GMT).

That undocking will mark the official end of the station’s current Expedition 72, which Ovchinin commands, and the start of Expedition 73, with Onishi in control.

If all goes according to plan, the Soyuz carrying Ovchinin, Pettit and Vagner will touch down on the steppe of Kazakhstan on Saturday around 9:20 p.m. EDT (0120 GMT and 6:20 a.m. local Kazakh time on April 20).

You can watch their homecoming live on Space.com when the time comes.