Three residents of the International Space Station are scheduled to complete their mission on the complex on Tuesday, Feb. 27. Coverage of their departure and landing back on Earth will air on NASA Television and the agency’s website.
Expedition 54 Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba of NASA and Commander Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos will undock from the space station at 6:08 p.m. EST, and land on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 9:32 p.m. (8:32 a.m. Feb. 28 Kazakhstan time).
Coverage of the Expedition 54 departure and landing activities is as follows:
Monday, Feb. 26
- 2:40 p.m. – Change of command ceremony, during which Misurkin will hand over station command to Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos.
Tuesday, Feb. 27
- 2:15 p.m. – Farewell and hatch closure coverage (hatch closure at 2:50 p.m.)
- 5:45 p.m. – Undocking coverage (undocking scheduled for 6:08 p.m.)
- 8 p.m. – Deorbit burn and landing coverage (deorbit burn at 8:38 p.m., and landing at 9:32 p.m.)
During their 168 days in space, they were part of the first expedition that began a long-term increase in the crew size on the U.S. segment from three people to four, enabling NASA to double the time dedicated to research – surpassing 100 hours of research in one week.
At the time of undocking, Expedition 55 will begin aboard the station. Shkaplerov, NASA’s Scott Tingle, and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will crew the station until three additional crew members arrive on March 23. Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel of NASA and Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 21 for a two-day journey to join Expedition 55 on station.
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Stephanie Schierholz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov
Gary Jordan
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
gary.j.jordan@nasa.gov