ISS: Expedition 47

Crew & expedition duration:

Exp 47 crew patch

Complet Exp.47 crew

Backup Crew

Mission details:

• On Mar 02, 2016 at 0102 UTC Volkov, Kornienko and Kelly, aboard Soyuz TMA-18M, undocked from the Poisk module, concluding Expedition 46.
  Tim Kopra then became commander of Expedition 47, with flight engineers Yuriy Malenchenko and Tim Peake.
• On Mar 18, 2016 Soyuz TMA-20M was launched carrying Alexey Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka and Jeff Williams. This is the last of the 11F732A47 Soyuz TMA-M series, which will be replaced by the improved Soyuz-MS variant.
• Following an only six hours solo flight Soyuz TMA-20M docked to ISS on March 19, 2016. Aleksei Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka and Jeffrey Williams became the ISS Exp. 47 (together with ISS Expedition 46 crew members Timothy Kopra, Yuri Malenchenko and Timothy Peake).
  
  

  Spheres experiment

  Cygnus arrival on ISS

  
  
• On Mar 23, 2016 Cygnus cargo ship OA-6, "SS Rick Husband", was launched aboard Atlas V flight AV-064 from Cape Canaveral.
  The spacecraft arrived at the station on March 26, 2016 at which time Expedition 47 Commander Timothy Kopra and Flight Engineer Timothy Peake grappled Cygnus, using the space station's robotic arm Canadarm-2. After Cygnus capture at 10:51 UTC, ground commands sent from mission control in Houston to the station's arm to rotate and install the spacecraft on the bottom of the station's Unity module. The freighter was berthed at 14:52 UTC.
  Cygnus carried almost 7,500 pounds (3,400 kg) of science and research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the orbital laboratory to support dozens of science and research investigations that will occur during Expeditions 47 and 48. The new experiments will inspire future scientists and explorers, with experiments such as an investigation that looks at the properties and behavior of regolith, or "soil" found on asteroids, comets, the moon, and other airless worlds; an instrument for the first-ever, space-based observations of the chemical composition of meteors entering Earth's atmosphere; a technology demonstration of an adhesive device that can stick on-command in the harsh environment of space; and, the second generation of a portable onboard 3-D printer, among others:
  Saffire-I provides a new way to study a large fire on an exploration craft, which has not been possible in the past because the risks for performing such studies on spacecraft with astronauts aboard are too high.
  Meteor will enable the first space-based observations of meteors entering Earth's atmosphere from space.
  Strata-I could give us answers about how regolith behaves and moves in microgravity, how easy or difficult it is to anchor a spacecraft in regolith, how it interacts with spacecraft and spacesuit materials, and other important properties.
  The Gecko Gripper study tests a gecko-inspired adhesive gripping device that can stick on command in the harsh environment of space.
  The Additive Manufacturing Facility will add an upgraded 3-D printing capability to the station.
• Progress M-29M undocked from the Zvezda module on Mar 30, 2015 at 1415 UTC and is performing attitude control experiments in a 373 x 401 km orbit.
• Progress MS-02 was launched from Baykonur on Mar 31, 2016 and docked with Zvezda on Apr 2 at 17:57:45 UTC. The two-day rendezvous for the Progress is deliberately planned to enable Russian flight controllers to test new software and communications equipment for the new vehicle configuration that will be standard for future Progress and piloted Soyuz spacecraft.
  The cargo deliver more than 2,400 kg of food, fuel and supplies to the station's Expedition 47 crew. Among the hardware is the microsatellite "Tomsk-TPU-120", created with the use of 3D-printers. "Tomsk-TPU-120" is a small, but full-fledged spacecraft with solar panels, batteries, on-board radio equipment.
• Progress M-29M was deorbited on Apr 8, 2016 and reentered around 14:16 UTC over the S Pacific.
• Dragon CRS-8 was launched on Falcon 9 F9-023 from Cape Canaveral on Apr 8, 2016 at 20:43 UT. It carries science research, crew supplies and hardware to the orbiting laboratory in support of the Expedition 47 and 48 crews. The new experiments arriving to the station will help investigators study muscle atrophy and bone loss in space, use microgravity to seek insight into the interactions of particle flows at the nanoscale level and use protein crystal growth in microgravity to help in the design of new drugs to fight disease.
  The flight also includes the Bigelow Aerospace expandable habitat module (BEAM) that will be attached to the space station for testing. In its scheduled return to Earth in May 2016, the Dragon capsule will bring back biological samples from astronauts, including those collected during the 11-month-mission of an US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut ("one-year mission"). This launch is the eighth contracted mission by SpaceX under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract.
  The spacecraft arrived at the capture point 10m from the Harmony module at 11:15 UTC Apr 10, 2016 at which time Jeffrey Williams and Timothy Peake used the station's robotic arm Canadarm-2 to capture the Dragon spacecraft at 11:23 UTC. Ground commands were sent from Houston to the station's arm to install Dragon on the bottom side of the Harmony nadir CBM port at 1357 UTC. At about 0600 UTC on Apr 16 the BEAM module was extracted from Dragon's trunk; BEAM was installed on the Tranquility module's aft port at 0937 UTC Apr 16.
  
  

  BEAM installation

  Diwata-1 launch

  
  
• On Apr 13, 2016 new cargo transport spacecraft Progress MS-02 developed and manufactured by RSC Energia (a part of State Corporation ROSCOSMOS) was successfully involved for the planned orbital correction of the International Space Station (ISS).
  According to the data of Mission Control Center (MCC) ballistic navigational support service the Progress MS-02 engines were fired at 12:20 UTC and operated for 254 seconds. As a result, the ISS velocity increment was 0.5 m/s. After flying the maneuver the medium altitude of the Station flight increased by 900 m and became 404.3 km.
  According to MCC information the ISS flight altitude was increased to generate the station working orbit to ensure certain conditions for the Soyuz TMA-19M manned transport spacecraft landing and the subsequent flight of Soyuz MS to the ISS.
• The first human-rated expandable structure that may help inform the design of deep space habitats was installed to the International Space Station on April 16, 2016. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), developed by Bigelow Aerospace, under contract to NASA, was attached to the station's Tranquility module over a period of about four hours. Controllers in mission control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston removed BEAM from the unpressurized trunk of SpaceX's Dragon CRS-8 or SpX-8 spacecraft, using the robotic Canadarm2, and moved it into position next to Tranquility's aft assembly port. NASA astronauts aboard the station secured BEAM using common berthing mechanism controls.
• On Apr 27, 2016 the 50 kg Diwata-1 satellite, launched on Cygnus OA-6, was removed from the Kibo airlock by the JRMS arm and released into orbit. Diwata-1 is an Earth observation satellite developed by the Phillipines.
• CRS-8 was unberthed at 1102 UTC May 11 and released into space at 1319 UTC. Dragon fired its thrusters three times to move to a safe distance from the station before being commanded to begin its deorbit burn about 19:00 UTC. The capsule splashed down around 120.1W 31.4N, off the coast of California, at 18:51 UTC.
  A recovery team retrieved the capsule and its more than 3,700 pounds (1,678 kg) of return cargo, including samples from ongoing space station research, which ultimately will be shipped to laboratories for further study. This cargo includes samples from human research, biology and biotechnology studies, physical science investigations and education activities sponsored by NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization that manages research aboard the U.S. national laboratory portion of the space station. The spacecraft also returned the final batch of human research samples from the 11-month-mission of an US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut ("one-year mission")
• A series of Cubesat deploys from the Kibo module began on May 16, 2016 with MinXSS (U of Colorado), CADRE (U Michigan), STMSat-1 (St. Thomas More School), and Nodes 1 and 2 (NASA-Ames). MinXSS carries a miniature X-ray solar spectrometer to study the hard X-ray spectra of solar flares. On May 17 deployment began of the PlanetLabs Flock-2e series (launched on OA-4) and Flock-2e-Prime (launched on OA-6).
• The Nanoracks NRCSD-7 cubesat deploys were completed on May 18, 2016 with the release of four Lemur-2 satellites from Spire Global. The Lemur system carries AIS and GPS radio occultation meteorology payloads. The distortion of the radio signal from a GPS satellite as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere and out again to the STRATOS detector on Lemur-2 depends on the temperature, pressure and humidity of the region of the atmosphere the signal is passing through - so STRATOS can infer the weather. Lemur's SENSE payload contributes to the network of automatic identification of shipping (AIS), relaying position and identification data from ships at sea.
• The two Nanoracks Cubesat Dispensers launched on OA-4 (Dec 2015, NRCSD-7) and OA-6 (Mar 2016, NRCSD-8) were stored on ISS until May and repacked to allow the high priority Dove 0D-class and Spire Global Lemur satellites to be deployed sooner:

              At launch                    After repacking on orbit
  
    NRCSD-7   MinXSS/CADRE                 MinXSS/CADRE
              NODES/STMSAT                 NODES/STMSAT
              Flock-2e 1 to 12             Flock-2e 1 to 4
                                           Flock-2e' 1 to 4
                                           Lemur-2 5 to 9
  
    NRCSD-8   Flock-2e' 1 to 12            Flock-2e' 5 to 12             
              Lemur-2 5 to 9               Flock-2e 5 to 12
  

  
  
• In addition there is an external deployer on OA-6 which contains Flock 2e' 13 to 20 and possibly 8 more Lemur-2s. It will be used after OA-6 departs the ISS in June.
• The MinXSS and Nodes cubesats released on May 16, 2016 are communicating with the ground, as are the Flock-2e/2e' satellites. No signals have been reported from CADRE or STMSat-1. The empty NRCSD-7 cubesat deployer was brought back inside in late May and replaced by NRCSD-8, loaded with 8 Flock 2e and 8 Flock 2e'. NRCSD-8 was probably stowed in the Kibo ELM-PS storeroom in the interim. The NRCSD is mounted on a table called MPEP (multipurpose experiment platform) and put in the Kibo airlock. The Japanese JEM-RMS robot arm then picks up the MPEP and points the NRCSD in the right direction to spring-eject its satellites, two 3U cubesats at a time. On May 30 deploys began from NRCSD-8.
• The CRS-8 Dragon which landed on May 11, 2016 brought back to Earth the EMU 3011 spacesuit implicated in the Parmitano and Kopra water leaks. EMU 3011 was launched into space on mission STS-132 in 2010. Also brought back aboard CRS-8 were the Flock-2b 11 and 12 cubesats which failed to deploy from the ISS last October. Nanoracks deployers NRCSD-5 and NRCSD-6 were also returned to Earth on CRS-8.
• Mission control halted the expansion of Bigelow Aerospace's experimental space station module on May 26, 2016 after the structure did not grow as predicted when air began flowing into it. Working in the International Space Station's Tranquility module, astronaut Jeffrey Williams opened a valve to allow the lab's air to gradually flow into the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module. Responding to step-by-step commands from engineers in Houston, Jeffrey Williams cycled the valve several times for a few seconds, and a pressure monitor showed air was beginning to fill the Bigelow habitat. But cameras mounted outside the space station showed BEAM was not growing as quickly as anticipated, based on the amount of air vented inside. Flight controllers informed NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams that BEAM had only expanded a few inches in both length and diameter at the time the operation ceased for the day.
  In a second attempt on May 28, 2016 the module expansion was successfully carried out; the process of expanding and pressurizing the module took from 1305 to 2044 UTC (it needed seven hours, planned was one hour). The diameter of the module is now 3.2 metres; its length was increased by 1.8m to about 3.7m.
  
  

  BEAM expanded

  Williams enters BEAM

  
  
• The Nanoracks NRCSD-8 successfully completed ejecting its cubesats on Jun 2, 2016.
• A nominal reboost with Progress MS-02 occurred as scheduled on June 08, 2016 at 14:00 UTC. Over the nearly four minute duration, 70 kg of propellant were consumed as well as an additional 6 kg for attitude control. Change in velocity was .45 m/s.
• After delivering almost 7,500 pounds (3,400 kg) of cargo to support dozens of science experiments from around the world, the Orbital ATK Cygnus OA-6 "S.S. Rick Husband" cargo spacecraft left the International Space Station on June 14, 2016.
  Ground controllers detached the Cygnus spacecraft, which arrived at the station March 26, 2016, from the Earth-facing side of the station's Unity module using the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Robotics controllers maneuvered Cygnus into place and Exp. 47 robotic arm operators Timothy Kopra and Timothy Peake gave the command for its 13:30 UTC release.
  Five hours after departure, the Saffire-I experiment took place onboard the uncrewed cargo craft. Saffire-I provides a new way to study a realistic fire on a spacecraft. This hasn′t been possible in the past because the risks for performing such studies on crewed spacecraft are too high. Instruments on the returning Cygnus measured flame growth, oxygen use and more. Results could determine microgravity flammability limits for several spacecraft materials, help to validate NASA's material selection criteria, and help scientists understand how microgravity and limited oxygen affect flame size. The investigation is crucial for the safety of current and future space missions.
• Mounted on the Cygnus service module was the first NRCSD-E external cubesat deployer carrying 5 Lemur-2 satellites. On Jun 21, 2016 two pairs of Lemur-2 cubesats were ejected (the deployment times have not been revealed). A third deployer silo with a single Lemur-2 failed to open, and the cubesat remained inside when then following day Cygnus made its deorbit burn and reentered over the South Pacific at 1329 UTC Jun 22.
  
  

  Cygnus release

  Craft docking on ISS

  
  
• On Jun 18 2016 Exp. 47 crew members Yuriy Malenchenko, Timothy Kopra and Timothy Peake transferred from the Rassvet module to Soyuz TMA-19, closing hatches at 0235 UTC and undocking at 05:52:30 UTC. The Expedition 47 concluded and the new ISS Expedition 48 began. Soyuz TMA-19M made its deorbit burn at 0822 UTC and reentered for a safe landing in Kazakhstan at 0915 UTC.

External links:

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

Astrophilately covers:

End exp.47 cancel, onboard ISS cancel, signed by exp.47 crew