Expedition 15 was the 15th expedition to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

(ISS). Four crew members participated in the expedition, although for most of the expedition's duration only three were on the station at any one time. During Expedition 15, the ISS

Integrated Truss Structure The Integrated Truss Structure (ITS) of the International Space Station (ISS) consists of a linear arranged sequence of connected trusses on which various unpressurized components are mounted such as logistics carriers, radiators, solar arrays, ...

was expanded twice:

STS-117 STS-117 ( ISS assembly flight 13A) was a Space Shuttle mission flown by Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'', launched from pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center on 8 June 2007. ''Atlantis'' lifted off from the launch pad at 19:38 EDT. Damage from a hail ...

brought the S3/S4 truss, and

STS-118 STS-118 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by the orbiter '' Endeavour''. STS-118 lifted off on 8 August 2007 from launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida and landed at the Shuttle Landing Fac ...

brought the S5 truss.

Crew

Crew Notes

Flight Engineer

Sunita Williams Sunita Lyn Williams (born September 19, 1965) is an American astronaut and United States Navy officer who formerly held the records for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes). Williams was ...

was the first Expedition 15 crew member to arrive. She participated in

Expedition 14 Expedition 14 was the 14th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). Commander Michael López-Alegría, and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 18 September 2006, 04:09 UTC, aboard Soyuz TMA-9. They joi ...

, until Expedition 15 Commander

Fyodor Yurchikhin Fyodor Nikolayevich Yurchikhin (russian: Фёдор Николаевич Юрчихин, Greek: Θεόδωρος Γιουρτσίχιν του Νικόλαου; born 3 January 1959) is a Russian cosmonaut of Greek descent, engineer and RSC Ene ...

assumed command of the station. Williams arrived at the station on 11 December 2006, aboard the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

''Discovery'' flight

STS-116 STS-116 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle '' Discovery''. ''Discovery'' lifted off on 9 December 2006 at 20:47:35 EST. A previous launch attempt on 7 December had been canceled due to cl ...

. Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer

Oleg Kotov Oleg Valeriyevich Kotov (russian: Олег Валериевич Котов) was born on 27 October 1965 in Simferopol, Crimean oblast in the Ukrainian SSR. After a career as a physician assigned to the Soviet space program, he joined the Russia ...

arrived the station on 9 April 2007 aboard

Soyuz TMA-10 Soyuz TMA-10 was a human spaceflight mission using a Soyuz-TMA spacecraft to transport personnel to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The mission began at 17:31:09 UTC on April 7, 2007 when the spacecraft was launched from the Ba ...

. On 26 April 2007, NASA announced that Williams would return to Earth on

, flown by Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'', instead of

as originally planned. Williams was replaced by

Clayton Anderson Clayton Conrad Anderson (born February 23, 1959) is a retired NASA astronaut. Launched on STS-117, he replaced Sunita Williams on June 10, 2007 as a member of the ISS Expedition 15 crew. He is currently an author, a motivational speaker, and a ...

, who arrived at the station aboard ''Atlantis'', which docked on 10 June 2007. Expedition 15 ended officially after

Expedition 16 Expedition 16 was the 16th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The first two crew members, Yuri Malenchenko and Peggy Whitson, launched on 10 October 2007, aboard Soyuz TMA-11, and were joined by spaceflight participant Sheikh ...

Commander

Peggy Whitson Peggy Annette Whitson (born February 9, 1960) is an American biochemistry researcher, retired NASA astronaut, and former NASA Chief Astronaut. Whitson has a total of 665 days in space, more than any other woman or American. Her first space mi ...

arrived at the station aboard

Soyuz TMA-11 Soyuz TMA-11 was a human spaceflight mission using a Soyuz-TMA spacecraft to transport personnel to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The mission began at 13:22 UTC on October 10, 2007, when the spacecraft was launched from the ...

, and the official change of command ceremony took place on 19 October 2007.

Backup crew

Roman Romanenko Roman Yurievich Romanenko (Major, Russian Air Force; russian: Роман Юрьевич Романенко; born 9 August 1971) is a Russian retired cosmonaut at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. He is also a politician, sitting in the ...

Commander – RSA *

Mikhail Korniyenko Mikhail Borisovich Kornienko (Михаил Борисович Корниенко; born 15 April 1960) is a Russian cosmonaut. Kornienko served as a flight engineer on the International Space Station during Expedition 23/ 24 and was selected alon ...

Flight Engineer – RSA * Gregory Chamitoff Flight Engineer – NASA (for Anderson)

Mission details

*Launch: 7 April 2007 17:31 UTC *Docking: 9 April 2007 07:10 UTC *Undocking: 21 October 2007 07:14 UTC *Landing: 21 October 2007 10:46 UTC *LandingSite: Ballistic Trajectory Landing Site northwest of

Arkalyk Arkalyk ( kz, Arqalyq; cyrl, Арқалық, russian: Аркалык) is a city in Kostanay Region, northern Kazakhstan. Earlier, it was the centre of Torgay Region, which was abolished in 1997. Today, it is the administrative centre of Torgay D ...

On 21 October 2007, after the separation of the Soyuz TMA-10 capsule, Moscow Mission Control reported that the Soyuz had entered into a

ballistic trajectory Projectile motion is a form of motion experienced by an object or particle (a projectile) that is projected in a gravitational field, such as from Earth's surface, and moves along a curved path under the action of gravity only. In the part ...

, which resulted in a landing that was short of the intended

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

landing site. Landing occurred without incident, and by 10:55 UTC, all crew members were out of the capsule, and the vehicle was secured. Until then, the only other time a Soyuz landing had resulted in a ballistic trajectory was the landing of

Soyuz TMA-1 Soyuz TMA-1, also catalogued as Soyuz TM-35, was a 2002 Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) launched by a Soyuz FG launch vehicle with a Russian-Belgian cosmonaut crew blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Thi ...

, for

Expedition 6 Expedition 6 was the sixth expedition to the International Space Station (25 November 2002 - 3 May 2003). It was the last three-man crew to reside on the station until the arrival of STS-121. The crew performed two spacewalks in support of main ...

. Another ballistic trajectory occurred with the landing of

on 19 April 2008 for

EVAs

*EVA 1: 30 May 2007 – Yurchikhin/Kotov, 5 hours, 25 minutes. *EVA 2: 6 June 2007 – Yurchikhin/Kotov, 5 hours, 37 minutes. *EVA 3: 23 July 2007 – Yurchikhin/Anderson 7 hours, 41 minutes.

References

External links

* * *
04/04/07: Soyuz Assembly Complete: Expedition 15 to Launch on April 7.
Site includes all ISS Status Reports since 2003.

{{ISS expeditions

Expedition 15 Expedition 15 was the 15th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). Four crew members participated in the expedition, although for most of the expedition's duration only three were on the station at any one time. During Expedition 15, ...

2007 in spaceflight