Expedition 53

Occurred 6 years ago

The Expedition 53 crew explored therapies to counteract space-caused symptoms and studied using synthetic materials to accelerate bone repair. Research gear was set up to observe cosmic rays to understand the Universe's fundamental structure while other station hardware demonstrated manufacturing superior optical fiber in microgravity.

Mission Type

ISS Expedition

meet the crew

Randy Bresnik, Alexander Misurkin, Mark Vande Hei, Sergey Ryazanskiy, Joe Acaba, Paolo Nespoli

Launch

July 28, 2017

Landing

Dec. 14, 2017

Expedition 53 Official Crew Portrait — The six-member Expedition 53 crew poses for an official crew portrait at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Seated in the front (from left) are Flight Engineer Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos and Commander Randy Bresnik of NASA. Standing in the back (from left) are NASA astronauts Joe Acaba and Mark Vande Hei, Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency.
NASA

Expedition 53 Official Crew Insignia — The official insignia of the Expedition 53 mission aboard the International Space Station.
NASA

Crew Members

Randy Bresnik, Commander
Alexander Misurkin, Flight Engineer
Mark Vande Hei, Flight Engineer
Sergey Ryazanskiy, Flight Engineer
Joe Acaba, Flight Engineer
Paolo Nespoli, Flight Engineer

Crew and Cargo Missions

12/14/17 – Exp 52/53 Land
12/6/17 – Orbital ATK CRS-8 Release
11/14/17 – Orbital ATK CRS-8 Capture
11/12/17 – Orbital ATK CRS-8 Launch
10/16/17 – ISS Progress 68 Docks
10/14/17 – ISS Progress 68 Launch
9/17/17 – SpaceX CRS-12 Release
9/12/17 – Exp 53/54 Launch/Dock

Spacewalks

Date: Oct. 20, 2017
Duration: 6 hours, 49 minutes
Spacewalkers: Randy Bresnik, Joe Acaba

Date: Oct. 10, 2017
Duration: 6 hours, 26 minutes
Spacewalkers: Randy Bresnik, Mark Vande Hei

Date: Oct. 5, 2017
Duration: 6 hours, 55 minutes
Spacewalkers: Randy Bresnik, Mark Vande Hei

Expedition 53 Resources

Mission Blogs

The daily blog updates for Expedition 53 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 53, 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 53 in the gallery.