A New Crew Arrives at the ISS

Image (Credit): An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts head to the ISS aboard a Soyuz rocket launched earlier today from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Earlier today, NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina left Russia and arrived safely at the International Space Station (ISS).

With their arrival, Expedition 74 will come to a close by month’s end and Expedition 75 will begin.

The Expedition 74 crew currently on the ISS includes NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, and Chris Williams; European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot; and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergei Mikaev, and Andrey Fedyaev.

Expedition 75 will begin once NASA’s Williams and Roscosmos’s Kud-Sverchkov, and Mikaev depart the station after an eight month mission.

With all of the attention on the Chinese and race to the Moon, it is sometimes easy to forget that Russian cosmonauts have been working together with NASA aboard the ISS for over 25 years. The first crew on the ISS in November 2000 was composed of NASA astronaut William M. Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Yuri P. Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev (shown below). The three were the Expedition 1 crew, and stayed aboard the station until March 2001.

Image (Credit): Expedition 1 crew members (from left to right) Sergei K. Krikalev, Yuri P. Gidzenko, and William M. Shepherd in the ISS’s Zvezda Service Module. (NASA)