ISS - Expedition 49 Mission patch.
October 27, 2016
One spacecraft is being packed and readied for the return of three humans to Earth while a cargo craft is being unloaded and settling in for a one-month stay.
The Expedition 49 trio of Commander Anatoly Ivanishin and Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Takuya Onishi are packing gear and preparing for their return to Earth Saturday night. The veteran cosmonaut and two first-time astronauts will wrap up their mission after 115 days in space.
They will parachute to a landing in Kazakhstan inside the Soyuz MS-01 spacecraft. The ride back to Earth takes about 3-1/2 hours after undocking from the International Space Station.
Image above: The six-member Expedition 49 crew poses for a portrait in the Destiny lab module. (Front row, from left) Kate Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin and Takuya Onishi. (Back row) Shane Kimbrough, Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko. Image Credit: NASA TV.
The Orbital ATK Cygnus is the latest cargo ship to arrive at the International Space Station. It was captured and installed to the Harmony module on Sunday Oct. 23 after a six-day flight that began in Virginia.
The hatches were opened the day it arrived and the crew began unloading over 5,100 pounds of crew supplies and science gear. Cygnus is scheduled to depart in mid-November and release a set of nanosatellites before scientists remotely set fire inside the spacecraft for the Saffire-II experiment.
Watch Station Crew Swap Command Friday Afternoon
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and her crewmates, Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are scheduled to return to Earth on Saturday, Oct. 29 at 11:59 p.m. EDT (9:59 a.m. Oct. 30, Kazakhstan time).
Image above: The Expedition 49-50 trio of (from left) Sergey Ryzhikov, Shane Kimbrough and Borisenko will stay on board the station after the Expedition 48-49 trio with Kate Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin and Takuya Onishi undock and return to Earth Saturday night. Image Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz.
NASA Television will air coverage of the departure and landing activities, beginning with a change of command ceremony at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 28. Expedition 49 Commander Ivanishin will hand over station command to NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough.
Watch live online on NASA’s TV website: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
Get weekly video highlights at: http://jscfeatures.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
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