Friday, December 6

NASA Astronaut Don Pettit, Crewmates Arrive at Space Station

Roxana Bardan

Sep 11, 2024

NASA astronaut Don Pettit, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, reached the International Space Station Wednesday, bringing its variety of locals to 12 for the 13-day handover duration.

After a two-orbit, three-hour journey to the station, the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft immediately docked to the orbiting lab’s Rassvet module at 3:32 p.m. EDT. The spacecraft gone for 12:23 p.m. EDT (9:23 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

NASA’s protection of hatch opening will stream at 5:30 p.m. on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the firm’s site. Hatch opening is arranged to start at 5:50 p.m. Learn how to stream NASA material through a range of platforms, consisting of social networks.

When aboard, the trio will sign up with Expedition 71 team members, consisting of NASA astronauts Tracy C. Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko. Exploration 72 will start Monday, Sept. 23, upon the departure of Dyson, Chub, and off-going station leader Kononenko, finishing a six-month stay for Dyson and a year-long exploration for Chub and Kononenko.

Pettit, Ovchinin, and Vagner will invest around 6 months aboard the orbital station advancing clinical research study as Expedition 71/72 team members before going back to Earth in the spring of 2025. This is Pettit and Ovchinin’s 4th spaceflight and Vagner’s 2nd.

Throughout Expedition 72, 2 brand-new teams will show up aboard the spaceport station, consisting of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 releasing in September, followed by Crew-10, set up for launch in February 2025.

Follow Pettit on X throughout his objective and get the current spaceport station team news on Instagram, Facebook, and X.

Discover more about International Space Station research study and operations at:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

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Joshua Finch/ Claire O’Shea
Head office, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov/ claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov

Leah Cheshier
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
leah.d.cheshier@nasa.gov

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