Expedition 18 was the 18th permanent crew of the International Space Station (ISS). The first two crew members, Michael Fincke, and Yuri Lonchakov were launched on 12 October 2008, aboard Soyuz TMA-13. With them was astronaut Sandra Magnus, who joined the Expedition 18 crew after launching on

STS-126 STS-126 was the one hundred and twenty-fourth NASA Space Shuttle mission, and twenty-second orbital flight of the ''Space Shuttle Endeavour'' (OV-105) to the International Space Station (ISS). The purpose of the mission, referred to as ULF2 by ...

and remained until departing on

STS-119 STS-119 ( ISS assembly flight 15A) was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) which was flown by space shuttle Discovery during March 2009. It delivered and assembled the fourth starboard Integrated Truss Segment (S6), ...

on 25 March 2009. She was replaced by

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 orb ...

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 ...

, who arrived at the ISS on

on 17 March 2009.

Gregory Chamitoff Gregory Errol Chamitoff (born 6 August 1962) is a Canadian-born American engineer and former NASA astronaut. He has been to space twice, spending 6 months aboard the ISS across Expedition 17 and 18 in 2008, and another 15 days as part of STS-13 ...

, who joined Expedition 18 after

Expedition 17 Expedition 17 was the 17th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The first two crew members, Sergey Volkov, and Oleg Kononenko were launched on 8 April 2008, aboard the Soyuz TMA-12. Once aboard the station, they joined Garrett ...

left the station, ended his stay aboard ISS and returned to Earth with the STS-126 crew.

Crew

Crew notes

Salizhan Sharipov, was originally slated to be the Soyuz commander and Expedition 18 Flight Engineer 1, but was replaced by his back-up Yuri Lonchakov.

Backup crew

Gennady Padalka Gennady Ivanovich Padalka (russian: Гeннадий Иванович Падалка; born 21 June 1958 in Krasnodar, Soviet Union) is a Russian Air Force officer and a Roscosmos cosmonaut. Padalka currently holds the world record for List of spac ...

– Commander – RSA (for Lonchakov) * Michael Barratt- Flight Engineer – NASA (for Fincke) *

Timothy Kopra Timothy Lennart "Tim" Kopra (born April 9, 1963) is an engineer, a Colonel in the United States Army and a retired NASA astronaut. He served aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer for Expedition 20, returning to Earth aboar ...

– Flight Engineer – NASA (for Chamitoff) *

Nicole Stott Nicole Marie Passonno Stott (born November 19, 1962) is an American engineer and a retired NASA astronaut. She served as a Flight Engineer on ISS Expedition 20 and Expedition 21 and was a Mission Specialist on STS-128 and STS-133. After 27 year ...

– Flight Engineer – NASA (for Magnus) * Soichi Noguchi – Flight Engineer – JAXA (for Wakata)

Mission plan

* Launch vehicle: Soyuz TMA-13 * Launch date: 12 October 2008 3:01 a.m. EDT * Docking: 14 October 2008 * Spacewalks: 22 December 2008 (completed 23 December) and 10 March 2009 * Landing: 8 April 2009

March 2009 debris incident

On 12 March 2009, a piece of debris from the upper stage of a Delta II rocket used to launch a GPS satellite in 1993, passed close to the ISS. The conjunction between the debris and the Space Station was not detected until it was too late to perform a

collision avoidance manoeuvre Spacecraft collision avoidance is the implementation and study of processes minimizing the chance of orbiting spacecraft inadvertently colliding with other orbiting objects. The most common subject of spacecraft collision avoidance research and deve ...

. The crew prepared to evacuate the station by closing hatches between modules, and boarding the Soyuz spacecraft that was docked to provide emergency crew escape. The debris did not hit the station, instead it passed by at 16:38 UTC, and the crew were cleared to resume operations about five minutes later.

Extra-vehicular activity

References

External links

NASA International Space Station page
{{Use British English, date=August 2010

Expedition 18 Expedition 18 was the 18th permanent crew of the International Space Station (ISS). The first two crew members, Michael Fincke, and Yuri Lonchakov were launched on 12 October 2008, aboard Soyuz TMA-13. With them was astronaut Sandra Magnus, who j ...

2008 in spaceflight 2009 in spaceflight