ISS: Expedition 45

Crew & expedition duration:

Exp 45 crew patch

Complet crew

Backup Crew

Mission details

• Continuation One Year Crew mission with Kelly Scott and Korniyenko Mikhail.

  Kelly and Korniyenko One Year path

  Kelly and Korniyenko

  
  
  
• After the undocking of Soyuz TMA-16M at 2129 UTC Sep 11, 2015 carrying Exp. 44 commander Padalka and EP-18 visiting crew members Mogensen and Aimbetov, Exp. 45 is now underway under the command of Scott Kelly, with flight engineers Mikhail Kornienko, Oleg Kononenko, Sergey Volkov, Kimiya Yui, and Kjell Lindgren.
• The S-CUBE meteor-observation cubesat from Chiba Institute of Technology and the SERPENS cubesat from the University of Brazilia were ejected from the J-SSOD deployer on the Kibo robot arm on Sep 17, 2015.
  
  

  Satellite deployment

  HTV-5 depart from ISS

  
  
• The SSRMS arm unberthed the Kounotori-5 from the Harmony module at 1112 UTC Sep 28, 2015.
  Following a one-orbit delay to clear an error message from the space station's robotic arm, Kimiya Yui, backed up by Kjell Lindgren, commanded the release of Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV)-5 from the International Space Station on September 28, 2015 at 16:53 UTC. The transport ship is filled with trash. The next day Kounotori-5 lowered its orbit with two burns and then made a final deorbit burn at 2008 UTC, with atmosphere entry around 2033 UTC for destruction over the South Pacific.
• Progress M-29M was launched from Baykonur on Oct 1, 2015 at 1649:40 UTC and docked with the ISS Zvezda module at 2252 UTC the same day. The 7283 kg spacecraft delivered a variety of supplies and maintenance equipment to the station.
• NanoRacks cubesat deployments resumed Oct 5, 2015 with the ESA-sponsored Danish GOMX-3 and AAUSAT-5, followed by the Flock-2b satellites from PlanetLabs.
• Begin Oct 2015: Progress M-28M is docked at Pirs, Progress M-29M is docked at Zvezda aft port, Soyuz TMA-17M is docked at Rassvet andSoyuz TMA-18M is docked at Poisk. The Harmony nadir CBM port is vacant.
• NanoRacks/PlanetLabs Flock-2b satellite deploys continued until Oct 7, 2015. Two satellites (Flock 2b-11 and 12) were not released due to a problem with the deployer. The NRCSD-6 deployer, with the two stuck satellites, was removed from the Kibo airlock on Oct 26 and will be returned to Earth on a future Dragon mission.
• On Oct 28, 2015 Astronauts Kelly and Lindgren made a spacewalk (US EVA-32) in suits EMU 3003 and 3010 (7h 16m). The Quest airlock was depressurized from abotu 1200 UTC to 1919 UTC. They removed a thermal cover from a failed MBSU unit, added thermal covers to the AMS-02 particle physics experiment, installed cabling for the future IDA docking adapters, and lubricated part of the LEE-B end of the Canadarm-2. Part of the LEE lubing and the IDA wiring, as well as the installation of a vent on Node 3, were omitted due to lack of time.
  
  

  Eva Kelly

  Eva Lindgren

  
  
• Kelly and Lindgren performed spacewalk US EVA-33 on Nov 6, 2015 (7h 48m). The airlock was depressurized around 1120 UTC and repressurized at 1910 UTC. The astronauts successfully reconfigured part of the station's cooling system on the P6 truss segment. The work went a bit slower than planned, and a backup radiator panel (the P6 TTCR) had to be redeployed because there wasn't enough time to fasten it down; this leaves it a bit more vulnerable to space debris than NASA would have liked.
• Progress M-29M carried out a reboost of the station on Nov 25, 2015 (delta-V 1.9m/s, burn duration 15m33s) raising the apogee by 6 km to an orbit of 397 x 411 km. ISS mass is 410972 kg (including 26600 kg of visiting vehicles).
• On December 06, 2015 at 21:44:57 UTC NASA commercial partner Orbital ATK launched a Cygnus spacecraft “S.S. Deke Slayton II”. Cygnus carried more than 7,000 pounds (3,175 kg) of science and research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the orbital laboratory to support dozens of approximately 250 science and research investigations that will occur during Expeditions 45 and 46. This first Cygnus mission using the Atlas V launch system provides increased performance and flexibility to the Orbital ATK cargo delivery service. It was the fourth contracted mission of Orbital ATK to the International Space Station under the agency's Commercial Resupply Services contract.
  Cygnus arrived at the space station on December 09, 2015. Kjell Lindgren and Scott Kelly used the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to reach out and capture Cygnus at 11:19 UTC
  
  

  Exp-45 Live on board

  Crew ISS-45 inflight

  
  
• The Deke Slayton II (Cygnus CRS4) reached the ISS on Dec 9, 2015 with SSRMS grapple at 1119 UTC. Cygnus is the first cargo ship to be berthed to the Earth-facing port on the Unity module (14:26 UTC). The spacecraft will spend more than a month attached to the space station before its destructive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere in January 2016, disposing of about 3,000 pounds (1,360 kg) of trash.
  Aboart the Cygnus is the small NovaWurks SIMPL satellite, 12 Flock 2e cubesats from Planet Labs, and the CADRE, STMSat-1, MinXSS-1, Nodes 1 and Nodes 2 cubesats.
  Mass of ISS after the OA-4 arrival is 418 metric tons.
• With undocking of Soyuz TMA-17M, carrying Oleg Kononenko, Kimiya Yui and Kjell Lindgren, on December 11, 2015 at 09:49 UTC the Expedition 45 concluded and the new ISS Expedition 46 began. US astronaut Scott Kelly remained station commander.

External links:

• Wikipedia: Exp. descriptions
• Spacefacts: Exp. description