Expedition 61


Expedition 61 was the 61st Expedition to the International Space Station, which began on 3 October 2019 with the undocking of the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft. The Expedition is commanded by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, who became the third European and first Italian astronaut to command the ISS. Parmitano, along with his Soyuz MS-13 colleagues Aleksandr Skvortsov and Andrew Morgan, and Christina Koch from Soyuz MS-12, transferred over from Expedition 60. They were joined by Oleg Skripochka and Jessica Meir, who launched on 25 September 2019 on board Soyuz MS-15.

Crew

PositionCrew member
Commander Luca Parmitano, ESA
Second spaceflight
Flight Engineer 1 Aleksandr Skvortsov, RSA
Third spaceflight
Flight Engineer 2 Andrew Morgan, NASA
First spaceflight
Flight Engineer 3 Christina Koch, NASA
First spaceflight
Flight Engineer 4 Oleg Skripochka, RSA
Third spaceflight
Flight Engineer 5 Jessica Meir, NASA
First spaceflight

Other crewed spaceflights to the ISS

According to a Flight Planning Integration Panel document obtained by in June 2019, Expedition 61 was tentatively scheduled to see two visits from Commercial Crew Development spacecraft. However, schedule slippages meant these visits will not occur.
Expedition 61 crew conducted nine spacewalks, more than in any other increment in the history of the ISS.
Four spacewalks were conducted to repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. The repairs were conducted by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan. Both of them were assisted by NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir who operated the Canadarm2 robotic arm from inside the Station. The spacewalks were described as the "most challenging since Hubble repairs".
There were multiple spacewalks in order to repair and improve ISS batteries. On 18 October 2019 Christina Koch and Jessica Meir took the first all female spacewalk in history.
and Christina Koch before their spacewalk, next to Aleksandr Skvortsov, Luca Parmitano, Oleg Skripochka, and Andrew Morgan