Expedition 50

Occurred 7 years ago

The Expedition 50 crew explored tissue regeneration using the microgravity environment to promote cell growth and tested a new lighting system to support crew wakefulness and sleep in space. An external experiment measured key components of the Earth's atmosphere and profiled trace gases.

Mission Type

ISS Expedition

meet the crew

Andrey Borisenko, Shane Kimbrough, Sergey Ryzhikov, Thomas Pesquet, Peggy Whitson, Oleg Novitskiy

Launch

Oct. 19, 2016

Landing

April 10, 2017

Expedition 50 Official Crew Portrait — Expedition 50 official crew portrait with (from left) Andrei Borisenko, Shane Kimbrough, Sergei Ryzhikov, Thomas Pesquet, Peggy Whitson and Oleg Novitsky.
NASA

Expedition 50 Official Crew Insignia — The official insignia of the Expedition 50 mission aboard the International Space Station.
NASA

Crew Members

Andrey Borisenko, Commander
Shane Kimbrough, Flight Engineer
Sergey Ryzhikov, Flight Engineer
Thomas Pesquet, Flight Engineer
Peggy Whitson, Flight Engineer
Oleg Novitskiy, Flight Engineer

Crew and Cargo Missions

4/10/17 – Exp 49/50 Land
3/19/17 – SpaceX CRS-10 Splashdown
2/24/17 – ISS Progress 66 Docks
2/23/17 – SpaceX CRS-10 Capture
2/22/17 – ISS Progress 66 Launch
2/19/17 – SpaceX CRS-10 Launch
1/31/17 – ISS Progress 64 Undock
1/27/17 – HTV-6 Kounotori Release
12/13/16 – HTV-6 Kounotori Capture
12/9/16 – HTV-6 Kounotori Launch
12/1/16 – ISS Progress 65 Anomaly
11/21/16 – Orbital ATK CRS-5 Release
11/19/16 – Exp 50/51 Dock
11/17/16 – Exp 50/51 Launch

Spacewalks

Date: March 30, 2017
Duration: 7 hours, 4 minutes
Spacewalkers: Shane Kimbrough, Peggy Whitson

Date: March 24, 2017
Duration: 6 hours, 34 minutes
Spacewalkers: Shane Kimbrough, Thomas Pesquet

Date: Jan. 13, 2017
Duration: 5 hours, 58 minutes
Spacewalkers: Shane Kimbrough, Thomas Pesquet

Date: Jan. 6, 2017
Duration: 6 hours, 32 minutes
Spacewalkers: Shane Kimbrough, Peggy Whitson

Expedition 50 Resources

Mission Blogs

The daily blog updates for Expedition 50 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 50, 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 50 in the gallery.