Expedition 46

Occurred 7 years ago

The Expedition 46 crew tested BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, tracked and identified the variety of microbes that live in the space station, while also studying protein crystals to inform the design of more potent, effective, and selective drugs.

Mission Type

ISS Expedition

meet the crew

Scott Kelly, Sergey Volkov, Mikhail Kornienko, Timothy Kora, Timothy Peake, Yuri Malenchenko

Launch

Dec. 15, 2015

Landing

June 18, 2016

Expedition 46 Official Crew Portrait — Expedition 46 crew portrait with (from left) Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineers Mikhail Kornienko, Sergey Volkov, Timothy Peake, Timothy Kopra and Yuri Malenchenko.
NASA

Crew Members

Scott Kelly, Commander
Sergey Volkov, Flight Engineer
Mikhail Kornienko, Flight Engineer
Timothy Kopra, Flight Engineer
Timothy Peake, Flight Engineer
Yuri Malenchenko, Flight Engineer

Crew and Cargo Missions

3/1/16 – One-Year Crew Land
2/19/16 – Orbital ATK CRS-4 Release
12/23/15 – ISS Progress 62 Dock
12/21/15 – ISS Progress 62 Launch
12/15/15 – Expedition 46/47 Launch/Dock

Spacewalks

Date: Feb. 3, 2016
Duration: 4 hours, 45 minutes
Spacewalkers: Yuri Malenchenko, Sergey Volkov

Date: Jan 15, 2016
Duration: 4 hours, 43 minutes
Spacewalkers: Tim Kopra, Tim Peake

Date: Dec. 21, 2015
Duration: 3 hours, 16 minutes
Spacewalkers: Scott Kelly, Tim Kopra

Expedition 46 Resources

Mission Blogs

The daily blog updates for Expedition 46 highlighting crew and cargo missions, spacewalks, and advanced space research.

The sun's first rays burst over the Earth's horizon

Mission Summary

Get an overview of the Expedition, its crew and the activities they are working on during this mission to the International Space Station.

The Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction (SoFIE) Growth and Extinction Limits (GEL) experiment aboard the International Space Station (ISS) studies flame growth and extinction in an effort to improve fire safety in space. This image shows a sequence of snapshots taken about 3 seconds apart. During this test point, the ambient oxygen concentration starts relatively high (28%). Initially, the flame is seen as yellow and sooty. As the ambient pressure is reduced, the flame becomes bluer and continues to shrink until fully extinguished. This gives researchers pressure limit data points for flame extinction that could help improve crew and spacecraft safety for future exploration missions.

Mission Science

Explore hands-on activities, interactive, lesson plans, educator guides, and other downloadable content about this topic.

One of the Expedition 41 crew members aboard the International Space Station, flying at an altitude of 222 nautical miles above a point in the Atlantic Ocean several hundred miles off the coast of Africa near the Tropic of Cancer, photographed this eye-catching panorama of the night sky and the Milky Way on Sept. 27. NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, flight engineer, tweeted the image, which was taken with an electronic still camera, set with a 24mm focal length. In his accompanying comments, Wiseman stated, "Sahara sands make the Earth glow orange."

Mission Imagery

During Expedition 46, the crew took images of the Earth views, the orbiting station, their daily lives aboard and the experiments they conducted during their stay, plus so much more. Check out some of the image highlights from Expedition 46 in the gallery.