ISS - Expedition 61 Mission patch.
October 6, 2019
The six-member Expedition 61 crew officially began Thursday morning after the departure of two Expedition 60 crewmates and a visiting astronaut. The current residents aboard the International Space Station now turn their attention to a series of spacewalks that begins Sunday.
Image above: The official Expedition 61 crew portrait with (from left) NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan, Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, astronaut Luca Parmitano of ESA (European Space Agency), Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, and NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch. Image Credit: NASA.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague is returning to Houston after completing a 203-day mission aboard the orbiting lab with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. The duo parachuted to Earth inside the Soyuz MS-12 crew ship and landed in Kazakhstan early Thursday with visiting astronaut Hazzaa Ali Almansoori of the United Arab Emirates. Ovchinin and Almansoori both returned to Star City, Russia.
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). Image Credit: NASA
Two NASA astronauts will exit the station’s Quest airlock in their U.S. spacesuits on Sunday at 7:50 a.m. EDT for a six-and-half hour spacewalk. Veteran spacewalkers Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan will begin the work to install new lithium-ion batteries on the Port-6 truss structure. This will be the first of five spacewalks in October to upgrade station power systems. Televised spacewalk coverage begins Sunday at 6:30 a.m.
Watch the spacewalk preview briefing that was broadcast Friday on NASA TV.
Upcoming spacewalk assignments:
Oct. 5: Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan
Oct. 11: Andrew Morgan and Christina Koch
Oct. 16: Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir
Oct. 21: Christina Koch and Jessica Meir
Oct. 25: Jessica Meir and Luca Parmitano
Oct. 31: Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Skvortsov
Five more spacewalks are planned in November and December aimed at repairing the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.
For NASA TV streaming video: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
Related article:
Dressing for the Job: Spacesuits Prepped for Upcoming Spacewalks
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/10/dressing-for-job-spacesuits-prepped-for.html
Related links:
Expedition 60: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition60/index.html
Expedition 61: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition61/index.html
Quest airlock: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/joint-quest-airlock
Truss structure: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/truss-structure
Spacewalks: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/spacewalks
Spacewalk preview briefing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o4XMOj2zzY
Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/alpha-magnetic-spectrometer.html
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/Mark Garcia.
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