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NASA Florida
Three crew members from Expedition 56 returned safely to earth after spending a total of 197 days on the International Space Station where they provided hands-on assistance for scientific study in low-Earth orbit in order to keep the circumnavigating laboratory in full operation.
They also performed 3 spacewalks. The crew members, NASA’s astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel and Oleg Artemyev, cosmonaut from the Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, returned to Earth landing safely, southeast of the remote Kazakhstan town of Dzhezkazgan on October 4, 2018.
Research in Microgravity
During their space expedition they completed hundreds of experiments. A highlight of these included a study of ultra-cold quantum gases making use of the first ever European commercial facility for research in microgravity as well as a system that accomplishes liquid-liquid separation using surface forces.
The crew also received 5 cargo spacecraft that delivered numerous tons of research experiments and supplies. Shortly after their space arrival, the crew were joined by the 14th SpaceX Dragon flight in April. The flight brought equipment and supplies. The next flight to arrive with more supplies was the 15th Dragon in July. May saw the arrival of the 9th Northrop Grumman Cygnus re-supply spacecraft before Expedition 55 came to an end.
NASA’s Year of Education on Station
A Russian Progress completed a best-ever fast rendezvous in August of under just four hours. In September, a week before Expedition 56 left for home, the 7th Japanese Konotouri cargo craft reached the station.
Whilst in space, Arnold and Feustel partook in many educational downlink events as part of NASA’s Year of Education on Station, accessing over 200,000 pupils in 29 states. To-date, Feustel has logged over 226 days in space on 3 spaceflights, while Arnold has spent over 209 days during two missions.
During Expeditions 55 and 56, the two ventured on 3 spacewalks outside of the station to perform upgrades and maintenance. This included upgrading and replacing exterior cameras, including those that will enable the approach and landing of the SpaceX Crew Dragon commercial crew spacecraft and the Boeing Starliner when they launch from the U.S. Whilst spacewalking, the two also changed apparatuses of the station’s communications network and cooling system and fitted new wireless communication antennas for external experimentations.
The Icarus Experiment
In his career, Feustel has amassed 61 hours and 48 minutes over 9 spacewalks and places second among U.S. astronauts overall. Arnold’s spacewalks amount to 32 hours and 4 minutes. In a 7-hour and 46-minute spacewalk, Artemyev and fellow cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev manually launched 4 small tech satellites and installed an experiment named Icarus on the Russian section of the space station.
The spacewalk was the longest in the history of the Russian space program. On his 2 flights, Artemyev has spent 366 days in space. Expedition 57 will continue station operations and research with a crew comprising NASA’s Serena Aunon-Chancellor, ESA’s (European Space Agency) Alexander Gerst, and Roscosmos’ Sergey Prokopyev.
Gerst took station command as the current crew readied for departure. The latest expedition is joined by Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague.