Expedition 59 was the 59th Expedition to the International Space Station. It started with the arrival of the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft carrying Aleksey Ovchinin, Nick Hague and Christina Koch,[3] joining Oleg Kononenko, David Saint-Jacques and Anne McClain who transferred from Expedition 58. The expedition formally began on March 15, 2019 (March 14 in the Americas).[1] Ovchinin and Hague were originally meant to fly to the ISS aboard Soyuz MS-10, but returned to Earth minutes after takeoff due to a contingency abort.[4] The expedition formally ended with the undocking of the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft carrying Kononenko, Saint-Jacques and McClain on 24 June 2019; Ovchinin, Hague and Koch transferred to Expedition 60.[2]

Expedition 59
Promotional Poster
Mission typeLong-duration expedition
Mission duration101 days, 22 hours, 24 minutes
Expedition
Space stationInternational Space Station
Began15 March 2019, 01:01 (15 March 2019, 01:01) UTC[1]
Ended24 June 2019, 23:25 (24 June 2019, 23:25) UTC[2]
Arrived aboardSoyuz MS-11
Soyuz MS-12
Departed aboardSoyuz MS-11
Crew
Crew size6
Members
EVAs4
EVA duration25 hours, 55 minutes

Expedition 59 mission patch

From left: Saint-Jacques, McClain, Kononenko, Ovchinin, Hague and Koch

Crew

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Position Crew member
Commander   Oleg Kononenko, Roscosmos
Fourth spaceflight
Flight Engineer   David Saint-Jacques, CSA
First spaceflight
Flight Engineer   Anne McClain, NASA
First spaceflight
Flight Engineer   Aleksey Ovchinin, Roscosmos
Second[a] spaceflight
Flight Engineer   Nick Hague, NASA
First[a] spaceflight
Flight Engineer   Christina Koch, NASA
First spaceflight

Spacewalks

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Uncrewed spaceflights to the ISS

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Resupply missions that visited the International Space Station during Expedition 59:

Spacecraft
- ISS flight number
Country Mission Launcher Launch
(UTC)
Docked/Berthed
(UTC)
Undocked/Unberthed
(UTC)
Duration (Docked) Deorbit
Progress MS-11
- ISS 72P
  Russia Logistics Soyuz-2.1a 4 Apr 2019, 11:01:35 4 Apr 2019, 14:22 29 Jul 2019, 10:44 115d 20h 22m 29 Jul 2019, 13:50
Cygnus NG-11
- CRS NG-11
  United States Logistics Antares 230 17 Apr 2019, 20:46:07 19 Apr 2019, 09:28 6 Aug 2019, 16:15 109d 6h 47m 6 Dec 2019, 15:28
SpaceX CRS-17
- SpX-17
  United States Logistics Falcon 9 4 May 2019, 06:48 6 May 2019, 13:33 3 Jun 2019, 16:01 28d 2h 28m 3 Jun 2019, 20:56

Mission summary

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Researchers on Expedition 59 will conduct experimentation on tissue chips since the microgravity environment can replicate the effects of aging and disease. The expedition will also conduct experiments on regolith simulants, Earth's atmospheric carbon cycle, and Astrobee robots designed to conduct routine chores aboard the ISS.[10]

Notes

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  1. ^ a b Not counting the aborted flight of Soyuz MS-10.

References

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  1. ^ a b Moran, Noah (March 14, 2019). "Soyuz Docked to Space Station". NASA Blogs.
  2. ^ a b "NASA Astronaut Anne McClain, Crewmates Return from Space Station Mission". NASA. June 24, 2019.
  3. ^ Gebhardt, Chris (March 14, 2019). "Soyuz MS-12 docks with the Space Station – NASASpaceFlight.com". NASASpaceflight.com.
  4. ^ Strickland, Ashley (March 15, 2019). "New crew launches to space station". cnn.com. Cable News Network. Retrieved March 17, 2019. Hague and Ovchinin are getting a second chance after their original October 11 launch failed. Shortly after launch, there was an anomaly with the booster, and the launch ascent was aborted, resulting in a ballistic landing of the spacecraft, according to a NASA statement.
  5. ^ "Spacewalkers Complete Battery Swaps for Station Power Upgrades". March 22, 2019.
  6. ^ "First Female Spacewalk Canceled Due To Lack Of Medium Sized Spacesuits Twitter Reacts".
  7. ^ "NASA Astronauts Complete 215th Spacewalk at Station – Space Station". blogs.nasa.gov. March 29, 2019. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
  8. ^ "U.S. And Canadian Astronauts Wrap up Power Upgrades Spacewalk – Space Station". April 8, 2019.
  9. ^ "Two Cosmonauts Wrap up the Fourth Spacewalk at the Station This Year – Space Station". May 29, 2019.
  10. ^ "MISSION SUMMARY" (PDF). nasa.gov. National Aeronautics and Space Administration . Archived from the original (PDF) on March 2, 2021. Retrieved March 17, 2019.