Expedition 15 was the 15th expedition to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS). Four crew members participated in the expedition, although for most of the expedition's duration only three were on the station at any one time. During Expedition 15, the ISS

Integrated Truss Structure The Integrated Truss Structure (ITS) of the International Space Station (ISS) consists of a linear arranged sequence of connected trusses on which various unpressurized components are mounted such as logistics carriers, radiators, ISS Solar Arra ...

was expanded twice:

STS-117 STS-117 (ISS assembly sequence, ISS assembly flight 13A) was a Space Shuttle mission flown by Space Shuttle Atlantis, Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'', launched from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39, pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center on June ...

brought the S3/S4 truss, and

STS-118 STS-118 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by the orbiter ''Space Shuttle Endeavour, Endeavour''. STS-118 lifted off on August 8, 2007, from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39, launch pad 39A at Kennedy ...

brought the S5 truss.

Crew

Crew Notes

Flight engineer Sunita Williams was the first Expedition 15 crew member to arrive. She participated in Expedition 14 until Expedition 15 commander

Fyodor Yurchikhin Fyodor Nikolayevich Yurchikhin () is a Russian cosmonaut of Pontic Greeks, Pontic Greek descent, engineer and Energia (corporation), RSC Energia test-pilot who has flown on five spaceflights. His first spaceflight was a 10-day Space Shuttle mi ...

assumed command of the station. Williams arrived at the station on 11 December 2006 aboard the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

''Discovery'' flight

STS-116 STS-116 (also known as ISS-12A) was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Discovery, Space Shuttle '' Discovery''. ''Discovery'' lifted off on December 9, 2006 for her 33rd flight at 20:47:35 Easte ...

. Yurchikhin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov arrived the station on 9 April 2007 aboard Soyuz TMA-10. On 26 April 2007, NASA announced that Williams would return to Earth on

, flown by Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'', instead of

as originally planned. Williams was replaced by Clayton Anderson, who arrived at the station aboard ''Atlantis'', which docked on 10 June 2007. Expedition 15 ended officially after

Expedition 16 Expedition 16 was the 16th List of International Space Station Expeditions, expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The first two crew members, Yuri Malenchenko and Peggy Whitson, launched on 10 October 2007, aboard Soyuz TMA-11, an ...

commander Peggy Whitson arrived at the station aboard Soyuz TMA-11 and the official change of command ceremony took place on 19 October 2007.

Backup crew

* Roman Romanenko Commander – RSA *

Mikhail Korniyenko Mikhail Borisovich Kornienko (Михаил Борисович Корниенко; born 15 April 1960) is a Russian cosmonaut who has undertaken multiple missions to the International Space Station (ISS). He first served as a flight engineer duri ...

Flight Engineer – RSA * Gregory Chamitoff Flight Engineer – NASA (for Anderson)

Mission details

*Launch: 7 April 2007 17:31

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

*Docking: 9 April 2007 07:10 UTC *Undocking: 21 October 2007 07:14 UTC *Landing: 21 October 2007 10:46 UTC *LandingSite: Ballistic Trajectory Landing Site northwest of Arkalyk On 21 October 2007, after the separation of the Soyuz TMA-10 capsule, Moscow Mission Control reported that the Soyuz had entered into a ballistic trajectory, which resulted in a landing that was short of the intended

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

landing site. Landing occurred without incident, and by 10:55 UTC, all crew members were out of the capsule, and the vehicle was secured. Until then, the only other time a Soyuz landing had resulted in a ballistic trajectory was the landing of Soyuz TMA-1, for

Expedition 6 Expedition 6 was the sixth expedition to the International Space Station (25 November 2002 – 3 May 2003). It was the last three-man crew to reside on the station until the arrival of STS-121 in 2006, delivering the final astronaut of Expedi ...

. Another ballistic trajectory occurred with the landing of Soyuz TMA-11 on 19 April 2008 for

EVAs

*EVA 1: 30 May 2007 – Yurchikhin/Kotov, 5 hours, 25 minutes. *EVA 2: 6 June 2007 – Yurchikhin/Kotov, 5 hours, 37 minutes. *EVA 3: 23 July 2007 – Yurchikhin/Anderson 7 hours, 41 minutes.

References

External links

* * *
04/04/07: Soyuz Assembly Complete: Expedition 15 to Launch on April 7.
Site includes all ISS Status Reports since 2003.

{{ISS expeditions Expedition 15 2007 in spaceflight