Visiting expeditions to the International Space Station are teams of one to three astronauts who visit the ISS by Soyuz on short duration expeditions. EP-N is a term used by RKK Energia, meaning both "Visiting Crew" [1] as "Visiting Expedition". [2]
Humans have been on the ISS on a temporary basis since December 1998 and on a permanent basis since November 2000. The permanent occupation of the station is carried out by core crews, who usually stay for six months. Along with this, space shuttles have also been to the ISS during the construction of the station.
Three-seat, single-use Soyuz serve as lifeboats on the ISS, changing every six months. If transporting the core members does not fully occupy the Soyuz, the ships end up being crewed by astronauts returning after a week or ten days on the space shuttle (usually representatives of space agencies other than Russia or space tourists) or by the Soyuz. These crew members are the "visiting team" and their expeditions are called "visiting expeditions" (Russian: экспедиция посещения, or ЭП). In the period 2000–2002, when crews were switched to the space shuttle, visiting expeditions ended up being three people. From 2003 to 2009, there was only one seat available on the Soyuz in addition to two main crew seats. Since 2009, the main crews have been six crew members and the Soyuz was solely used for its transportation until the Crew Dragon launch. The next short visit did not occur until September 2015, in connection with the one-year mission to the ISS, and then in 2019.
Continued international collaboration on ISS missions has been thrown into doubt by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions on Russia. [3]
Flights with space tourists.
Nº [4] | Crew [5] | Image | Launch (UTC) | Landing (UTC) | Backup [5] | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st Visiting Expedition 30 April 2001 – 6 May 2001 | ||||||
1 | Talgat Musabayev Yuri Baturin Dennis Tito [a] | 28 April 2001 07:37:19 (Soyuz TM-32) | 6 May 2001 05:41:28 (Soyuz TM-31) | Viktor Afanasyev Konstantin Kozeyev | [6] [7] | |
7d 22h 4m 9s | ||||||
2nd Visiting Expedition Andromeda Program 23 October 2001 – 31 October 2001 | ||||||
2 | Viktor Afanasyev Claudie Haigneré Konstantin Kozeyev | 21 October 2001 08:59:34 (Soyuz TM-33) | 31 October 2001 04:59:25 (Soyuz TM-32) | Sergei Zalyotin Nadezhda Kuzhelnaya | [8] [9] | |
9d 19h 59m 51s | ||||||
3rd Visiting Expedition Marco Polo Program 27 April 2002 – 5 May 2002 | ||||||
3 | Yuri Gidzenko Roberto Vittori Mark Shuttleworth [a] | 25 April 2002 06:26:35 (Soyuz TM-34) | 5 May 2002 03:51:40 (Soyuz TM-33) | Gennady Padalka Oleg Kononenko | [10] [11] | |
9d 21h 25m 5s | ||||||
4th Visiting Expedition Odissea Program 1 November 2002 – 9 November 2002 | ||||||
4 | Sergei Zalyotin Frank De Winne Yuri Lonchakov | 30 October 2002 03:11:10 (Soyuz TMA-1) | 10 November 2002 00:04:20 (Soyuz TM-34) | Yuri Lonchakov Aleksandr Lazutkin | [12] [13] | |
10d 20h 53m 10s | ||||||
5th Visiting Expedition Cervantes Program 20 October 2003 – 27 October 2003 | ||||||
5 | Pedro Duque | 18 October 2003 05:38:03 (Soyuz TMA-3) | 28 October 2003 02:40:20 (Soyuz TMA-2) | André Kuipers | [14] [15] | |
9d 21h 2m 17s | ||||||
6th Visiting Expedition Delta Program 21 April 2004 – 29 April 2004 | ||||||
6 | André Kuipers | 19 April 2004 03:19:00 (Soyuz TMA-4) | 30 April 2004 00:11:15 (Soyuz TMA-3) | Gerhard Thiele | [16] [17] | |
10d 20h 52m 15s | ||||||
7th Visiting Expedition 16 October 2004 – 24 October 2004 | ||||||
7 | Yuri Shargin | 14 October 2004 03:06:27 (Soyuz TMA-5) | 24 October 2004 00:35:08 (Soyuz TMA-4) | Without backup. | [18] [19] | |
9d 21h 28m 41s | ||||||
8th Visiting Expedition Eneid Program 17 April 2005 – 24 April 2005 | ||||||
8 | Roberto Vittori | 15 April 2005 00:46:25 (Soyuz TMA-6) | 24 April 2005 22:08:27 (Soyuz TMA-5) | Robert Thirsk | [20] [21] | |
9d 21h 22m 2s | ||||||
9th Visiting Expedition 3 October 2005 – 10 October 2005 | ||||||
9 | Gregory Olsen | 1 October 2005 03:54:53 (Soyuz TMA-7) | 11 October 2005 01:09:47 (Soyuz TMA-6) | Sergei Kostenko | [22] [23] | |
9d 21h 14m 54s | ||||||
10th Visiting Expedition Missão Centenário 1 April 2006 – 8 April 2006 | ||||||
10 | Marcos Pontes | 30 March 2006 02:30:20 (Soyuz TMA-8) | 8 April 2006 23:47:12 (Soyuz TMA-7) | Sergey Volkov | [24] [25] | |
Visiting astronaut [b] | 9d 21h 16m 52s | |||||
11th Visiting Expedition 20 September 2006 – 29 September 2006 | ||||||
11 | Anousheh Ansari | 19 September 2006 04:08:42 (Soyuz TMA-9) | 29 September 2006 01:13:37 (Soyuz TMA-8) | Without backup. | [26] [27] | |
9d 21h 4m 55s | ||||||
12th Visiting Expedition 9 April 2007 – 21 April 2007 | ||||||
12 | Charles Simonyi | 7 April 2007 17:31:14 (Soyuz TMA-10) | 21 April 2007 12:31:04 (Soyuz TMA-9) | Without backup. | [28] [29] | |
13d 18h 59m 50s | ||||||
13th Visiting Expedition 12 October 2007 – 21 October 2007 | ||||||
13 | Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor | 10 October 2007 13:22:38 (Soyuz TMA-11) | 21 October 2007 10:35:49 (Soyuz TMA-10) | Faiz Khaleed | [30] [31] | |
Visiting astronaut [b] | 10d 21h 13m 11s | |||||
14th Visiting Expedition Korean Astronaut Program 10 April 2008 – 19 April 2008 | ||||||
14 | Yi So-yeon | 8 April 2008 11:16:38 (Soyuz TMA-12) | 19 April 2008 08:29:43 (Soyuz TMA-11) | Ko San | [32] [33] | |
Visiting astronaut [b] | 10d 21h 13m 5s | |||||
15th Visiting Expedition Generation II Astronaut 14 October 2008 – 24 October 2008 | ||||||
15 | Richard Garriott | 12 October 2008 07:01:33 (Soyuz TMA-13) | 24 October 2008 03:36:49 (Soyuz TMA-12) | Nik Halik | [34] [35] | |
11d 20h 35m 16s | ||||||
16th Visiting Expedition 28 March 2009 – 8 April 2009 | ||||||
16 | Charles Simonyi | 26 March 2009 11:49:18 (Soyuz TMA-14) | 8 April 2009 07:15:09 (Soyuz TMA-13) | Esther Dyson | [36] [37] | |
12d 19h 25m 51s | ||||||
17th Visiting Expedition Poetic Social Mission 2 October 2009 – 11 October 2009 | ||||||
17 | Guy Laliberté | 30 September 2009 07:14:44 (Soyuz TMA-16) | 11 October 2009 04:31:43 (Soyuz TMA-14) | Barbara Barrett | [38] [39] | |
10d 21h 16m 59s | ||||||
18th Visiting Expedition 4 September 2015 – 19 September 2015 | ||||||
18 | Andreas Mogensen Aidyn Aimbetov | 2 September 2015 04:37:43 (Soyuz TMA-18M) | 12 September 2015 00:51:30 (Soyuz TMA-16M) | Thomas Pesquet Sergey Prokopyev | [40] [41] | |
9d 20h 13m 47s | ||||||
19th Visiting Expedition UAE Astronaut Mission 1 25 September 2019 – 3 October 2019 | ||||||
19 | Hazza Al Mansouri | 25 September 2019 13:57:42 (Soyuz MS-15) | 3 October 2019 10:59:21 (Soyuz MS-12) | Sultan Al Neyadi | [42] [43] | |
Visiting astronaut [b] | 7d 21h 1m 39s | |||||
Visiting Expedition Vyzov 5 October 2021 – 17 October 2021 | ||||||
– | Klim Shipenko Yulia Peresild | 5 October 2021 08:55:02 (Soyuz MS-19) | 17 October 2021 04:35:42 (Soyuz MS-18) | Aleksei Dudin Alyona Mordovina | [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] | |
11d 19h 40m 40s | ||||||
Spaceflight participants | ||||||
20th Visiting Expedition 8 December 2021 – 20 December 2021 | ||||||
20 | Aleksandr Misurkin Yusaku Maezawa [a] Yozo Hirano [a] | 8 December 2021 07:38:15 (Soyuz MS-20) | 20 December 2021 03:13:18 (Soyuz MS-20) | Alexandr Skvortsov Shun Ogiso [a] | [50] [51] | |
11d 19h 35m 3s | ||||||
21st Visiting Expedition 23 March 2024 – 6 April 2024 | ||||||
21 | Oleg Novitsky Marina Vasilevskaya [b] | 23 March 2024 12:36:10 (Soyuz MS-25) | 6 April 2024 07:17:47 (Soyuz MS-24) | Ivan Vagner Anastasia Lenkova | [52] [53] [54] | |
13d 18h 41m 37s |
Expeditions canceled due to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
Crew [5] | Launch [5] | Duration | Backup [5] | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
5th Visiting Expedition | ||||
Gennady Padalka Pedro Duque | 28 April 2003 (Soyuz TMA-2A) | 10 days | Sergei Krikalev Oleg Kotov | [55] [56] |
6th Visiting Expedition | ||||
Sergei Krikalev André Kuipers | 18 October 2003 (Soyuz TMA-3A) | 10 days | Yury Onufriyenko Oleg Skripochka | [55] [57] |
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