Mission Reports

Live coverage: Space station crew home after 115-day mission

Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, Japanese flight engineer Takuya Onishi and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins departed the International Space Station on Saturday and headed for a homecoming in Kazakhstan to wrap up a 115-day expedition in orbit. Undocking occurred at 8:35 p.m. EDT Saturday (0035 GMT Sunday), with an on-target landing more than three hours later at 11:58 p.m. EDT (0358 GMT).

Mission Reports

Station crew preps for Saturday return to Earth

In a rapid-fire crew rotation, a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts are packing up for the trip back to Earth Saturday, leaving the International Space Station just eight days after the arrival of another three-person crew and three weeks before their own replacements arrive to boost the lab’s crew back to six.

Mission Reports

Astronauts complete problem-free spacewalk

Space station commander Jeff Williams and flight engineer Kate Rubins completed a smooth 6-hour 48-minute spacewalk Thursday, retracting a spare cooling radiator, installing two high-definition TV cameras and inspecting a massive solar array rotation mechanism that has experience subtle vibrations in recent months.

Mission Reports

Astronauts set for second spacewalk in two weeks

Space station commander Jeff Williams and astronaut Kate Rubins plan to carry out their second spacewalk in two weeks Thursday, venturing back outside to retract a cooling radiator, install a high-definition TV camera, replace a burned-out light and inspect struts attached to a large solar array rotary mechanism.

News

Long-awaited station spacewalk on tap Friday

Astronauts Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins ventured outside the lab complex Friday for a long-awaited spacewalk to attach a new docking mechanism, the first of two that will be used by U.S. crew ferry ships being built by Boeing and SpaceX to carry astronauts to and from the outpost, ending NASA’s sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.