NASA astronaut Jack Fischer
Credits: NASA
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NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik
Credits: NASA
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NASA astronaut Mark Vande
Hei
Credits: NASA
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NASA astronaut Scott Tingle
Credits: NASA
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NASA and its international partners have updated the assignments
for several crew rotations to the International Space
Station in 2017. The changes reflect a switch in assignments for some NASA
astronauts, as well as a reduction in the number of Russian cosmonauts on some
missions.
Expedition 51/52 crew members NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and
cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos will launch
in March 2017. Yurchikhin will be the Expedition 52 commander.
In May 2017, Expedition 52/53 will launch with NASA astronaut
Randy Bresnik, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Paolo Nespoli and Russian
Cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy. Bresnik will be the Expedition 53 commander.
Expedition 53/54 will launch in September 2017. NASA astronaut
Mark Vande Hei and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin will make up that
crew, with Misurkin commanding Expedition 54.
Expedition 54/55 will launch with NASA astronaut Scott Tingle,
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Norishige Kanai and Russian
cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov in October 2017. Expedition 55 will be commanded
by Skvortsov.
The Expedition 50/51 launch of NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, astronaut
Thomas Pesquet of ESA and cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy is unchanged and on track to
launch Nov. 17 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. They will join Expedition 50 crew
members currently on the station, including astronaut Shane Kimbrough of NASA and
cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko of Roscosmos. Kimbrough is the
commander of Expedition 50 and Whitson will assume command for Expedition 51.
The International Space Station is a convergence of science,
technology and human innovation that enables us to demonstrate new technologies
and make research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. It has been continuously
occupied since November 2000 and, since then, has been visited by more than 200
people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft. The space
station remains the springboard to NASA's next giant leap in exploration,
including future missions to an asteroid and Mars.
Find biographies for NASA astronauts at:
Learn more about the International Space Station at: