Expedition 26 was the 26th long-duration mission to the International Space Station. The expedition's first three crew members – one US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts – arrived at the station on board Soyuz TMA-01M on 10 October 2010. Expedition 26 officially began the following month on 26 November, when half of the crew of the previous mission, Expedition 25, returned to Earth on board Soyuz TMA-19. The rest of the Expedition 26 crew – one US astronaut, one Russian cosmonaut and one ESA astronaut – joined the trio already on board when their spacecraft, Soyuz TMA-20, docked with the station on 17 December 2010.
The commander of Expedition 25, Douglas Wheelock, handed over command of the station to Expedition 26 commander Scott Kelly on 24 November 2010. The 26 crew was joined by the crew of STS-133 on 26 February 2011, and was supplied by the ESA's Johannes Kepler unmanned resupply craft, which arrived on 24 February. Expedition 26 ended on 16 March 2011 with the departure of Soyuz TMA-01M.
Read more about Expedition 26: Crew, Spacewalks, Gallery, References
Famous quotes containing the word expedition:
“Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination.”
—Janet Frame (b. 1924)