After spending six months (172 days) in space, three space station crew members are preparing to return to Earth today (Sept. 6) — and you can watch their departure, descent and landing live here on Space.com.
NASA astronaut and Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams will be capping off his record-breaking stay on the station, as the astronaut who has spent the most cumulative time in space.
Williams, along with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin, will undock from the International Space Station to begin their journey home at 5:51 p.m. EDT (2151 GMT). You can watch the undocking and their journey home in a live webcast here on Space.com starting at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT), courtesy of NASA TV.
The crew closed the hatch to their Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT) this afternoon. If all goes according to plan, the crew is expected to land southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 9:14 p.m. EDT (0114 GMT Sept. 7).
"I will certainly miss this view! Vast gratitude toward my crewmates, ground teams, supporting friends, and family," Williams said in a tweet this morning.
Williams and his Russian crewmates arrived at the space station on March 18 and have been very busy maintaining hundreds of scientific experiments and undertaking multiple spacewalks over the course of their six-month stay.
On Aug. 19 and Sept. 1, Williams spacewalked with Kate Rubins to perform vital tasks on the exterior of the orbiting lab, including installing the first International Docking Adapter and retracting a thermal control radiator that was no longer in use, but in jeopardy of being damaged by orbital debris.
This will conclude Williams' fourth mission on the space station, during which time he has accrued a record-breaking 534 days in space.
Williams handed over command of the space station to Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin Monday (Sept. 5). When the Soyuz spacecraft undocks from the space station tonight, it will mark the official transition to Expedition 49.
Rubins, Ivanishin and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi will remain on the station. NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and Russian cosmonauts Andrey Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhikov will join the crew aboard the space station on Sept. 23.
Quelle: SC
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Expedition 48 Crew Lands Safely on Earth
The Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 48 crew members NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin, and Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016 (Kazakh time). Williams, Ovchinin, and Skripochka are returning after 172 days in space where they served as members of the Expedition 47 and 48 crews onboard the International Space Station.
Image Credit: NASA/Bills Ingalls
NASA astronaut and Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams returned to Earth Tuesday after his U.S. record-breaking mission aboard the International Space Station.
Williams and his Russian crewmates Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka, of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, landed in their Soyuz TMA-20M at 9:13 p.m. EDT southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan (7:13 a.m. Sept. 7, local time).
Having completed his fourth mission, Williams now has spent 534 days in space, making him first on the all-time NASA astronaut list. Skripochka now has 331 days in space on two flights, while Ovchinin spent 172 days in space on his first.
“No other U.S. astronaut has Jeff’s time and experience aboard the International Space Station. From his first flight in 2000, when the station was still under construction, to present day where the focus is science, technology development and fostering commercialization. Jeff even helped prepare the space station for future dockings of commercial spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program,” said Kirk Shireman, ISS Program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We’re incredibly proud of what Jeff has accomplished off the Earth for the Earth.”
Williams was instrumental in preparing the station for the future arrival of U.S. commercial crew spacecraft. The first International Docking Adapter was installed during a spacewalk by Williams and fellow NASA astronaut Kate Rubins Aug. 19. Outfitted with a host of sensors and systems, the adapter’s main purpose is to connect spacecraft bringing astronauts to the station in the future. Its first users are expected to be Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, now in development in partnership with NASA.
During his time on the orbital complex, Williams ventured outside the confines of the space station for a second spacewalk with Rubins to retract a spare thermal control radiator and install two new high-definition cameras.
Together, the Expedition 48 crew members contributed to hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science aboard humanity’s only orbiting laboratory.
The crew members also welcomed five cargo spacecraft during their stay. Williams was involved in the grapple of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft in March, the company's fourth commercial resupply mission, and SpaceX’s eighth Dragon spacecraft cargo delivery in April, and welcomed a second Dragon delivery in July. Two Russian ISS Progress cargo craft also docked to the station in April and July delivering tons of supplies.
Expedition 49 continues operating the station with Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos in command. He, Rubins, and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will operate the station for more than two weeks until the arrival of three new crew members.
Shane Kimbrough of NASA and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko of Roscosmos are scheduled to launch Sept. 23, U.S. time, from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
Quelle: NASA