Expedition 27

Occurred 15 years ago

Expeditions 27 and 28 installed a dark matter experiment, tested the Robonaut astronaut helper, and explored how space affects vision, the body, and the mind.

Mission Type

ISS Expedition

meet the crew

Dmitry Kondratyev, Andrey Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyaev, Paolo Nespoli, Catherine Coleman, Ron Garan

Launch

Dec. 15, 2010

Landing

May 23, 2011

Expedition 27 Official Crew Portrait — Expedition 27 crew members take a break from training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center to pose for a crew portrait. Pictured from the right are Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, commander; Russian cosmonaut Andrey Borisenko, NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman, Russian cosmonaut Alexander Samokutyaev, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Paolo Nespoli and NASA astronaut Ron Garan, all flight engineers.
NASA

Expedition 27 Official Crew Insignia — The official insignia of the Expedition 27 mission aboard the International Space Station.
NASA

Crew Members

Dmitry Kondratyev, Commander
Andrey Borisenko, Flight Engineer
Alexander Samokutyaev, Flight Engineer
Paolo Nespoli, Flight Engineer
Catherine Coleman, Flight Engineer
Ronald Garan, Flight Engineer

Crew and Cargo Missions

5/23/11 – Expedition 26/27 Land
4/6/11 – Expedition 27/28 Dock
4/29/11 – ISS Progress 42 Dock
4/27/11 – ISS Progress 42 Launch
4/22/11 – ISS Progress 41 Undock
4/4/11 – Expedition 27/28 Launch
5/18/11 – STS-134 Dock
3/28/11 – HTV-2 Kounotori Release

Spacewalks

Date: March 2, 2011
Duration: 6 hours, 14 minutes
Spacewalkers: Stephen Bowen, Alvin Drew

Date: Feb 28, 2011
Duration: 6 hours, 34 minutes
Spacewalkers: Stephen Bowen, Alvin Drew

Expedition 27 Resources

News Releases

The news releases for Expedition 27 covering a variety of mission events and other activities both on Earth and in space.

Earth's Moon, Venus, Jupiter and the crescent of Earth at the top.

Expedition Press Kit

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

Learn more about the range of microgravity science encompassing human research, space phsyics, and more the Expedition 27 crew has conducted.

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 27, 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 27 in the gallery.