Expedition 59

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]

ISS Expedition 59
Promotional Poster
Mission typeISS Expedition
Mission duration101d 22h 24m
Expedition
Space stationInternational Space Station
Began15 March 2019 01:01 UTC[1]
Ended24 June 2019 23:25 UTC[2]
Arrived aboardSoyuz MS-11
Soyuz MS-12
Departed aboardSoyuz MS-11
Crew
Crew size6
Members
EVAs4
EVA duration25h 55min

Expedition 59 mission patch

(l-r) Saint-Jacques, McClain, Kononenko, Ovchinin, Hague and Koch
 

Crew
Position Crew member
Commander Russia Oleg Kononenko, RSA
Fourth spaceflight
Flight Engineer 1 Canada David Saint-Jacques, CSA
First spaceflight
Flight Engineer 2 United States Anne McClain, NASA
First spaceflight
Flight Engineer 3 Russia Aleksey Ovchinin, RSA
Third[lower-alpha 1] spaceflight
Flight Engineer 4 United States Nick Hague, NASA
Second[lower-alpha 1] spaceflight
Flight Engineer 5 United States Christina Koch, NASA
First spaceflight

Spacewalks
EVA # Spacewalkers Start (UTC) End (UTC) Duration
Expedition 59
EVA 1		 United States Anne McClain

United States Nick Hague

 22 March 2019
12:01		 22 March 2019
6:40		 6 hours, 39 minutes
McClain and Hague installed adapter plates while Dextre swaps the batteries between spacewalks. Get aheads included removing debris from the Unity Module in preparation for the arrival of Cygnus NG-11 in April, stowing tools for the repair of the flex hose rotary coupler, and securing tiebacks on the solar array blanket boxes. This spacewalk was originally going to be carried out by European astronaut Alexander Gerst and Hague as part of Expedition 57, although it was delayed due to the Soyuz MS-10 launch abort.[5]
Expedition 59
EVA 2		 United States Nick Hague

United States Christina Hammock-Koch

 29 March 2019

11:42

 29 March 2019

18:27

 6 hours, 45 minutes
Hague and Koch finished the work of the first spacewalk and installed the final three adapter plates on the other side of the P4 Truss. The crew also transferred some tools and installed a grapple bar on the flex hose rotary coupler. Between spacewalks, Dextre will change the batteries and the exposed pallet will be loaded onto HTV-8 to be jettisoned into space where it will burn up. One of the batteries malfunctioned and will be removed by Dextre and discarded. Dextre will also replace a Battery Discharge Unit and will bring the failed unit which was damaged by the short inside where it will be returned to earth on SpaceX CRS-17. Until it is repaired P4 will use the old batteries left on the station as spares. Get aheads included installing gap spanners and breaking torque on the P6 batteries in preparation for their replacement by Expedition 62 crew members this summer. Hague also inspected sockets on P6 so the foot restraints could be attached. This spacewalk was supposed to be done by Anne McClain and Christina Koch as an all female spacewalk but because of problems with Christina's suit and the spare suit not ready or properly sized Anne McClain will have to sit this spacewalk out and will have to go out with David on the next spacewalk.[6] This spacewalk became the first for Koch who became the 14th woman to walk in space.[7]
Expedition 59
EVA 3		 United States Anne McClain

Canada David Saint-Jacques

 8 April 2019

11:31

 8 April 2019

18:00

 6 hours 30 minutes
McClain and Saint Jacques routed cables to be used as a redundant power supply for Canadarm2. The crew installed studs on the Columbus Module in preparation for the installation of an exposed facility. The crew removed an adapter plate and reinstalled an old set of batteries as spares to replace a failed battery that malfunctioned on the last spacewalk. Saint Jacques became the first Canadian crew member to walk in space and the fourth Canadian to do a spacewalk since Chris Hadfield[8]
Expedition 59
EVA 4		 Russia Oleg Kononenko

Russia Aleksey Ovichinin

 29 May 2019

15:42

 29 May 2019

21:43

 6 hours 1 minute
Kononenko and Ovichinin removed experiments from the Pirs docking compartment and cleaned the windows. They also installed a handrail to connect Zarya to Poisk and re-positioned the Plume Measuring Unit. The crew then moved to the Zvesda Service Module and removed and jettisoned the Plasma Monitoring Units. Before they closed the hatch they sent a video of themselves and sang happy birthday in Russian to Alexei Leonov who was the first spacewalker and was celebrating his 85th birthday.[9]

Uncrewed spaceflights to the ISS

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

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
  1. Counting the aborted flight of Soyuz MS-10, even though this did not quite cross the Kármán line. This matches NASA's count, though RSA follows the Kármán line definition.[3]

References
  1. Moran, Noah (March 14, 2019). "Soyuz Docked to Space Station". NASA Blogs.
  2. "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 . Retrieved March 17, 2019.
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