history of the international space station

'I think if you add it up, I've been on orbit with about 45 different people and this will add at least five more.'ĭuring their stay, the Expedition 47/48 crew members will facilitate about 250 research investigations and technology demos, as well as oversee the resupply of the station with the arrival and departures of American and Russian cargo vehicles. 'I'm really looking forward to flying with this crew,' Williams said. Later after those three depart in June, Williams will command the Expedition 48 crew, including Ovchinin and Skripochka, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Anatoli Ivanishin, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Takuya Onishi with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). astronaut Tim Kopra and British astronaut Tim Peake with the European Space Agency (ESA), who launched in December. Once aboard the orbital laboratory, Williams, Ovchinin and Skripochka will join Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, U.S. He will launch with cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos on Russia's Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 18.Įxpedition 47 crew mates Oleg Skripochka, Jeff Williams, Alexey Ovchinin, Tim Peake, Tim Kopra and Yuri Malenchenko. Williams, whose first trip to the outpost was aboard space shuttle Atlantis in May 2000, six months before the space station's first expedition crew arrived, is now set to join the Expedition 47/48 more than 15 years later.

'So my career covers the history of the space station.' 'It occurred to me a few months ago that I have gotten the unique opportunity to have gone in the early days, before Expedition 1, to the space station for the first time and then to be there again, about halfway through assembly with a crew of two, and then back with a crew of three, and then later with a crew of six,' Williams said in an interview after a briefing at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Thursday (Jan. record for cumulative time off the Earth, will dedicate part of his upcoming six-month expedition to highlighting how the orbital complex came to be what it is today. Jeff Williams, who in March will become the first American to spend three long-duration expeditions aboard the space station and will set a new U.S. – NASA's next astronaut to launch to the International Space Station will use his unique position – in both time and space – to share the history of the outpost.

History of the international space station