Expedition 40

Occurred 10 years ago

Expedition 40 explored space-to-Earth communications, evaluated specialized exercise shoes, tested new biology hardware, and installed ocean monitoring gear.

Mission Type

ISS Expedition

Meet the crew

Steve Swanson, Oleg Artemyev, Alexander Skvortsov, Maxim Suraev, Reid Wiseman, Alexander Gerst

Launch

March 25, 2014

Landing

Sept. 10, 2014

Expedition 40 Official Crew Portrait — The official insignia of the Expedition 40 mission aboard the International Space Station.
NASA

Crew Members

Steve Swanson, Commander
Oleg Artemyev, Flight Engineer
Alexander Skvortsov, Flight Engineer
Maxim Suraev, Flight Engineer
Reid Wiseman, Flight Engineer
Alexander Gerst, Flight Engineer

Crew and Cargo Missions

9/10/14 – Expedition 39/40 Land
8/15/14 – Orb-2 Release
8/12/14 – ATV-5 Dock
7/29/14 – ATV-5 Launch
7/23/14 – ISS Progress 56 Launch/Dock
7/21/14 – ISS Progress 55 Undock
7/16/14 – Orb-2 Capture
7/13/14 – Orb-2 Launch
6/9/14 – ISS Progress 53 Undock
5/28/14 – Expedition 40/41 Launch
5/18/14 – SpaceX CRS-3 Release

Spacewalks

Date: Aug. 18, 2014
Duration: 5 hours, 11 minutes
Spacewalkers: Alexander Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev

Date: June 19, 2014
Duration: 7 hours, 23 minutes
Spacewalkers: Alexander Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev

Expedition 40 Resources

News Releases

The news releases for Expedition 40 covering a variety of mission events and other activities both on Earth and in space.

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

Learn more about the range of microgravity science encompassing human research, space phsyics, and more the Expedition 40 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 40, 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 40 in the gallery.