ISS - Expedition 48 Mission patch / ISS - Expedition 49 Mission patch.
Sept. 6, 2016
Two astronauts are cleaning up after a spacewalk while a pair of cosmonauts are getting a Soyuz spacecraft ready for departure after the Labor Day weekend. On the ground, three new crew members are preparing for a launch to the International Space Station at the end of the month.
Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Kate Rubins completed a spacewalk Thursday, retracting a thermal radiator and installing a pair of high definition cameras. Today, the astronauts are recharging spacesuits and tidying up the Quest airlock by stowing their tools and other spacewalk gear.
Image above: The new high-definition video camera installed during Thursday’s spacewalk is now in service and providing better external views. Image Credit: NASA.
Expedition 48 Crew Hands Over the Space Station to Expedition 49
Video above: The reins of the International Space Station were passed from NASA’s Jeff Williams to cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos during a ceremony on the orbital outpost on Sept. 5. Williams is returning to Earth Sept. 7 with his Expedition 48 crewmates, Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos in the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft for a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to complete a 172-day mission. Ivanishin remains on the station as commander of Expedition 49 along with Flight Engineers Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency until later this year. Video Credit: NASA.
The trio will undock Tuesday at 5:51 p.m. EDT inside the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft officially ending the Expedition 48 mission. After a few hours they will parachute to a landing in Kazakhstan after 5-1/2 months in space.
Back on Earth, new station crew members Shane Kimbrough, Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko participated in traditional ceremonies and final qualification exams. They will join the Expedition 49 crew two days after their Sept. 23 launch inside the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft.
Keep up with the International Space Station, and its research and crews, at:
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html
Image (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
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