Expedition 68 is the 68th long-duration expedition to the

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

. The expedition began upon the departure of

Soyuz MS-21 Soyuz MS-21 was a Russian Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS) with a crew of three launched from Baikonur on 18 March 2022. The launch was previously planned for 30 March 2022, but in the provisional flight manifest prep ...

on 29 September 2022, with

ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1 ...

astronaut

Samantha Cristoforetti Samantha Cristoforetti, OMRI (; born in Milan on 26 April 1977) is an Italian European Space Agency astronaut, former Italian Air Force pilot and engineer. She holds the record for the longest uninterrupted spaceflight by a European astronaut (1 ...

taking over as ISS commander. Initially, the expedition consisted of Cristoforetti and her three SpaceX Crew-4 crewmates Kjell N. Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins, as well as

Roscosmos The State Space Corporation "Roscosmos" (russian: Государственная корпорация по космической деятельности «Роскосмос»), commonly known simply as Roscosmos (russian: Роскосмос) ...

cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and American astronaut, Francisco Rubio, who launched aboard

Soyuz MS-22 Soyuz MS-22 is a Russian Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station with a crew of three launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 21 September 2022. The launch was previously planned for 13 September 2022, but in the provisional flight ma ...

on September 21, 2022 and were transferred from Expedition 67 alongside the Crew-4 astronauts. Crew-4 departed the station in 13 October, 2022 and was replaced by SpaceX Crew-5, which ferried

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, as well as

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

astronaut

Koichi Wakata is a Japanese engineer and a JAXA astronaut. Wakata is a veteran of four NASA Space Shuttle missions, a Russian Soyuz mission, and a long-duration stay on the International Space Station. During a nearly two-decade career in spaceflight, he has ...

and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, to the station. Before departing, Cristoforetti handed command of the station over to Prokopyev. On December 14, 2022, a coolant leak was discovered on

docked at the station, cancelling a spacewalk, and initiating contingency planning.

Crew

Notes

References

{{Portal bar, Spaceflight Expeditions to the International Space Station 2022 in spaceflight