ISS - Expedition 61 Mission patch.
February 5, 2020
Record-setting astronaut Christina Koch, along with Alexander Skvortsov of Roscosmos and Luca Parmitano of ESA (European Space Agency) are preparing to depart the International Space Station just after midnight for their return to Earth early Thursday morning. Earlier today Expedition 61 Commander Parmitano passed control of the station to Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos.
Tune in to NASA Television and the agency’s website tonight at 9 p.m. EST as Koch, Skvortsov, and Parmitano say farewell and board their Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft in preparation for their undocking and return to Earth.
Image above: Expedition 61 Commander Luca Parmitano (front left) handed over control of the station today to Oleg Skripochka (front right). In the back row (from left) are Flight Engineers Christina Koch, Alexander Skvortsov, Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan. Image Credit: NASA.
Koch was a crew member for Expeditions 59, 60 and 61, spending 328 days living and working aboard the International Space Station.
Soyuz's spacecrafts docked to ISS. Animation Credits: NASA/ISS HD Live Now
During Koch’s 11-month mission, she participated in more than 210 investigations, helping advance NASA’s goals to return to the Moon under the Artemis program and prepare for human exploration of Mars. Koch participated in a number of studies to support those future exploration missions, including research into how the human body adjusts to weightlessness, isolation, radiation and the stress of long-duration spaceflight.
Related article:
Astronaut Christina Koch’s Space Station Science Scrapbook
http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/02/astronaut-christina-kochs-space-station.html
Related links:
Expedition 61: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition61/index.html
Expedition 62: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition62/index.html
Artemis program: http://www.nasa.gov/artemis
NASA TV: https://www.nasa.gov/live
ESA’s Web TV: https://www.esa.int/esawebtv.esa.int
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
Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
Best regards, Orbiter.ch
