ISS - Expedition 63 Mission patch.
April 16, 2020
NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir and Oleg Skripochka of the Russian space agency Roscosmos are preparing to depart the International Space Station Thursday evening in their Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft and return to Earth.
Today the Expedition 62 crew conducted a change of command ceremony in which Skripochka ceremonially handed command of the orbiting laboratory to newly arrived NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy. Expedition 63, a three-person crew of Cassidy and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, begins when the Soyuz departs the station Thursday.
Image above: Clockwise from bottom left are station crewmembers Chris Cassidy, Anatoly Ivanishin, Ivan Vagner, Andrew Morgan, Jessica Meir and Oleg Skripochka. Image Credit: NASA.
NASA Television and the agency’s website will provide live coverage beginning at 6 p.m. EDT April 16 as the departing crew members say farewell and close the hatches between their Soyuz and the spacecraft at about 6:30 p.m.
Undocking the Soyuz spacecraft from ISS. Animation Credit: NASA
NASA coverage will resume at 9:30 p.m. prior to the trio undocking the Soyuz from the aft port of the station’s Zvezda service module at 9:53 p.m. At midnight, NASA TV will return to provide coverage during the deorbit burn at 12:22 a.m. Friday, April 17, that will put the Soyuz on course for a parachute-assisted landing at 1:16 a.m. (11:16 a.m. Kazakhstan time) on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan.
Related links:
NASA Television: https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive
Expedition 62: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition62/index.html
Expedition 63: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition63/index.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
Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
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