April 20, 2017

RELEASE 17-044

Two New Crew Members Arrive at International Space Station

After a six-hour flight, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos arrived at the International Space Station at 9:18 a.m. EDT Thursday where they will continue important scientific research.

The two launched aboard a Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:13 a.m. (1:13 p.m. Baikonur time), orbited Earth four
times, and docked at the space station.

The arrival of Fischer and Yurchikhin increased the station's crew complement to five. The two join Expedition 51 Commander Peggy Whitson of NASA and
Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency). The Expedition 51 crew members will spend more
than four months conducting approximately 250 science investigations in
fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences
and technology development.

Novitskiy and Pesquet will remain aboard the station until early June.
Fischer and Yurchikhin are scheduled to remain aboard the station until September, along with Whitson, whose stay aboard the station was extended
into Expedition 52 by an agreement recently signed between NASA and Roscosmos.

The expanded Expedition 51 crew soon will conduct new science investigations arriving on Orbital ATK’s seventh NASA-contracted commercial resupply
mission Saturday, April 22. Investigations arriving will include an antibody investigation that could increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs
for cancer treatment and an advanced plant habitat for studying plant physiology and growth of fresh food in space. Another new investigation
bound for the U.S. National Laboratory will look at using magnetized cells
and tools to make it easier to handle cells and cultures, and improve
the reproducibility of experiments. Cygnus also is carrying 38 CubeSats, including many built by university students from around the world, as
part of the QB50 program. The CubeSats are scheduled to deploy from either
the spacecraft or space station in the coming months.

Fischer and Whitson are scheduled to take part in the fifth spacewalk
of the year on May 12. The pair’s main task will be to replace an avionics box on the starboard truss called an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier, a storage platform. The box houses electrical, and command and data routing equipment
for science experiments and replacement hardware stored outside the station. The new avionics box is arriving aboard Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo craft
on Saturday, April 22.

The crew members also are scheduled to receive one Russian Progress resupply mission delivering several tons of food, fuel, supplies and research.

For more than 16 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard
the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating
new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth
that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep
space. A global endeavor, more than 200 people from 18 countries have
visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 1,900 research investigations from researchers in more than 95 countries.

Follow Jack Fischer on his first space mission at:

https://twitter.com/Astro2fish

Get breaking news, images and features from the station on Instagram and Twitter:

http://instagram.com/iss

and

http://www.twitter.com/Space_Station

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Press Contacts

Kathryn Hambleton
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
kathryn.hambleton@nasa.gov

Dan Huot
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
daniel.g.huot@nasa.gov

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