NASA Astronaut Anne McClain and Crewmates Adjusting to Life Aboard Space Station

By  //  December 4, 2018

arrival briefly restores the station's crew complement to six

Anne McClain of NASA, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Oleg Konenenko of Roscosmos are adjusting to life on the International Space Station after a successful launch and docking of their Russian Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft Monday. (NASA image)

(NASA) – Three crew members are adjusting to life on the International Space Station after a successful launch and docking of their Russian Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft Monday.

The Soyuz carrying Anne McClain of NASA, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Oleg Konenenko of Roscosmos launched at 6:31 a.m. EST  from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

McClain, Saint-Jacques and Konenenko docked to the space station’s Poisk module at 12:33 p.m. after a four-orbit, six-hour journey, and opened the hatch between the two spacecraft at 2:37 p.m.

The arrival briefly restores the station’s crew complement to six as they join Serena Auñón-Chancellor of NASA, Expedition 57 Commander Alexander Gerst of ESA and Sergey Prokopyev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Auñón-Chancellor, Gerst and Prokopyev are scheduled to remain aboard the station until Dec. 20.

Expedition 58 officially begins once the three departing spacefarers undock from the space station.

McClain, Saint-Jacques and Konenenko will spend more than six months conducting hundreds of science investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences and technology development, providing the foundation for continuing human spaceflight beyond low-Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars.

Some of the investigations they will conduct are sponsored by the U.S. National Laboratory on the space station, which Congress designated in 2005 to maximize its use for improving quality of life on Earth.

Highlights of upcoming investigations include experiments in forest observation, robotic refueling and satellite deployment.

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