New Expedition 28 Crew Members Arrive at International Space Station

The Expedition 28 crew has expanded to six members with the arrival of Flight Engineers Mike Fossum, Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa. The new trio docked to the International Space Station in the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft Thursday at 5:18 p.m. EDT.

The new crew members entered the station’s Rassvet module to begin their stay when the hatches were opened at 8:34 p.m.

Volkov is a station veteran on his second long-term space mission. His first was as Expedition 17 commander in 2008. Fossum visited the space station twice aboard space shuttle Discovery. He conducted three spacewalks in 2006 during STS-121 and three spacewalks in 2008 during STS-124. Furukawa, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut, is conducting his first spaceflight mission.

Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa join Commander Andrey Borisenko and Flight Engineers Ron Garan and Alexander Samokutyaev. They have been aboard the orbital laboratory since April 6 when they arrived aboard the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft.

Expedition 28 officially began May 23 when the Expedition 27 crew undocked while space shuttle Endeavour and the STS-134 crew were still at the station. Expedition 27 crew members Dmitry Kondratyev, Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli landed in Kazakhstan after 159 days in space.

Nespoli took photographs and video of Endeavour docked to the station from the Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft. The imagery and video are the first taken of a shuttle docked to the station from the perspective of a Soyuz spacecraft.