Expedition 51

Occurred 7 years ago

The Expedition 51 crew studied the types of microbes that can survive in extreme environments, such as outer space, and investigated ways to preserve food and drugs to support long-term space missions. An external experiment was installed on the station to observe cosmic rays and answer fundamental questions about the Universe.

Mission Type

ISS Expedition

meet the crew

Jack Fischer, Fyodor Yurchikhin, Thomas Pesquet, Peggy Whitson, Oleg Novitskiy

Launch

Nov. 17, 2016

Landing

June 2, 2017

Expedition 51 Official Crew Portrait — The five-member Expedition 51 crew consists of (from left) Jack Fischer, Fyodor Yurchikhin, Thomas Pesquet, Peggy Whitson and Oleg Novitskiy.
NASA

Expedition 51 Official Crew Insignia — The official insignia of the Expedition 51 mission aboard the International Space Station.
NASA

Crew Members

Jack Fischer, Commander
Fyodor Yurchikhin, Flight Engineer
Thomas Pesquet, Flight Engineer
Peggy Whitson, Flight Engineer
Oleg Novitskiy, Flight Engineer

Crew and Cargo Missions

6/2/17 – Exp 50/51 Land
4/22/17 – Orbital ATK CRS-7 Capture
4/20/17 – Exp 51/52 Launch/Dock
4/18/17 – Orbital ATK CRS-7 Launch

Spacewalks

Date: May 23, 2017
Duration: 2 hours, 46 minutes
Spacewalkers: Peggy Whitson, Jack Fischer

Date: May 12, 2017
Duration: 4 hours, 13 minutes
Spacewalkers: Peggy Whitson, Jack Fischer

Expedition 51 Resources

Mission Blogs

The daily blog updates for Expedition 51 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 51, 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 51 in the gallery.