Expedition 55

Occurred 6 years ago

The Expedition 55 crew studied how weightlessness affects bone marrow and blood cells and installed an incubator that generates artificial gravity for advanced space biology research. External hardware on the station was set up to observe severe thunderstorms and study how materials are affected by the harsh environment of space.

Mission Type

ISS Expedition

meet the crew

Richard Arnold, Oleg Artemyev, Drew Feustel, Norishige Kanai, Anton Shkaplerov, Scott Tingle

Launch

Dec. 17, 2017

Landing

June 3, 2018

The six-member Expedition 55 crew poses for an official crew portrait at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. In the front row (from left) are Scott Tingle of NASA, Commander Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. In the back row (from left) are NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Andrew Feustel and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev.
NASA

The official insignia of the Expedition 55 mission aboard the International Space Station.
NASA

Crew Members

Anton Shkaplerov, Commander
Richard Arnold, Flight Engineer
Oleg Artemyev, Flight Engineer
Andrew Feustel, Flight Engineer
Norishige Kanai, Flight Engineer
Scott Tingle, Flight Engineer

Crew and Cargo Missions

6/3/18 – Exp 54/55 Undock/Land
5/24/18 – Orbital ATK CRS-9 Capture
5/21/18 – Orbital ATK CRS-9 Launch
5/5/18 – SpaceX CRS-14 Release
4/4/18 – SpaceX CRS-14 Capture
4/2/18 – SpaceX CRS-14 Launch
3/28/18 – ISS Progress 68 Undock
3/23/18 – Exp 55/56 Dock
3/21/18 – Exp 55/56 Launch

Spacewalks

Date: May 16, 2018
Duration: 6 hours, 31 minutes
Spacewalkers: Drew Feustel, Ricky Arnold

Date: March 29, 2018
Duration: 6 hours, 10 minutes
Spacewalkers: Drew Feustel, Ricky Arnold

Expedition 55 Resources

Mission Blogs

The daily blog updates for Expedition 55 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 55, 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 55 in the gallery.