The first rays of the sun broke over the Earth’s horizon during a sunrise in orbit as the International Space Station orbited over the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia. Photo credit: NASA Johnson
Two veteran residents of the International Space Station will hold a change of command ceremony on Tuesday before the Expedition 63 crew return to Earth the next day. In the meantime, the Russian part of the crew has temporarily sealed a leak in the orbit laboratory.
Commander Chris Cassidy of NASA will hand over control of the space station to cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov on Tuesday. The duo will be accompanied by the remaining crew members for the traditional event live on NASA television starting at 4:15 p.m. EDT.
Cassidy will spend another night in space with flight engineers Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner before leaving the station on the Soyuz crew ship MS-16 on Wednesday. You will undock from the Poisk module at 7:32 p.m., re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere a little more than three hours later, and jump to a landing in Kazakhstan at 10:55 p.m. (October 22, 7:55 a.m. Baikonur time). All activities will be broadcast live on NASA television.
Expedition 64 officially begins when Cassidy and his two Russian crew members undock. The new station commander Ryzhikov will remain in space with flight engineers Kate Rubins from NASA and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov from Roscosmos until April.
Russian crew members could Temporarily seal the air leak Teams have investigated aboard the station. The leak, which has been investigated for several months, continues to pose no immediate threat to the crew at the current leak rate. Roscosmos engineers are working with the station crew to develop a forward plan to permanently seal the suspected leak.
