ISS - Expedition 57 Mission patch.
December 4, 2018
The launch of the SpaceX Dragon cargo vessel slipped one day to Wednesday at 1:16 p.m. EST with meteorologists forecasting 90% favorable weather for launch. Meanwhile, the newest crew members aboard the International Space Station are getting used to their new home in space.
Image above: Expedition 57 Commander Alexander Gerst of ESA (European Space Agency) peers out the International Space Station’s “window to the world,” the seven-windowed cupola. Just outside the cupola are two spacecraft including the Soyuz MS-09 crew craft and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo craft with one of its cymbal-shaped UltraFlex solar arrays featuring prominently in the frame. Image Credit: NASA.
Dragon’s 16th mission to the orbital lab will deliver almost 5,700 pounds of science, crew supplies and hardware. The commercial space freighter is due to arrive at the station Saturday when astronauts Alexander Gerst and Serena Auñón-Chancellor will command the Canadarm2 to grapple Dragon around 6 a.m.
New station crew members Oleg Kononenko, Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques are in their second day aboard the station. The trio are familiarizing themselves with station systems and safety procedures today. They began their mission Monday when they launched aboard the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft at 6:31 a.m. and docked just six hours and two minutes later to the Poisk module. The new crew will stay in space until June.
Image above: Sunrise over Austral Ocean, seen by EarthCam on ISS, speed: 27'558 Km/h, altitude: 404,19 Km, image captured by Roland Berga (on Earth in Switzerland) from International Space Station (ISS) using ISS-HD Live application with EarthCam's from ISS on December 4, 2018 at 18:35 UTC. Image Credits: Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.
Expedition 57 Commander Alexander Gerst is getting for his return to Earth on Dec. 20 and began packing his personal items today. He’ll wrap up his mission with Flight Engineers Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Sergey Prokopyev and land in Kazakhstan inside the Soyuz MS-09 crew ship after six-and-a-half months in space.
Related links:
Expedition 57: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition57/index.html
SpaceX Dragon: https://www.nasa.gov/spacex
Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Marck Garcia/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.
Best regards, Orbiter.ch
