Expedition 68

Occurred 3 years ago

The Expedition 68 crew studied cardiovascular health and explored 3D printing knee cartilage and cardiac tissue samples. The astronauts also grew red dwarf tomatoes and observed liquid behavior in artificial gravity to support missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Mission Type

ISS Expedition

meet the crew

Frank Rubio, Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Koichi Wakata, Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin, Anna Kikina

Launch

Sep. 29, 2022

Landing

March 28, 2023

👁 Expedition 68 Crew Portrait

The seven-member Expedition 68 crew poses for an official portrait. From left are, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio; Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata; NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann; and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Anna Kikina.

NASA

👁 Expedition 68 Crew Insignia

The official insignia of the Expedition 68 mission aboard the International Space Station.

NASA

Crew Members

Sergey Prokopyev, Commander
Dmitri Petelin, Flight Engineer
Frank Rubio, Flight Engineer
Nicole Mann, Flight Engineer
Josh Cassada, Flight Engineer
Koichi Wakata, Flight Engineer
Anna Kikina, Flight Engineer

Crew and Cargo Missions

3/28/23 – Soyuz MS-22 Undock/Land
3/16/23 – SpaceX CRS-27 Dock
3/14/23 – SpaceX CRS-27 Launch
3/11/23 – SpaceX Crew-5 Splashdown
3/11/23 – SpaceX Crew-5 Undock
3/3/23 – SpaceX Crew-6 Dock
3/2/23 – SpaceX Crew-6 Launch
2/25/23 – ISS Soyuz MS-23 Dock
2/23/23 – ISS Soyuz MS-23 Launch
2/17/23 – ISS Progress 82 Undock
2/11/23 – ISS Progress 83 Dock
2/9/23 – ISS Progress 83 Launch
2/7/23 – ISS Progress 81 Undock
1/9/23 – SpaceX CRS-26 Undock
11/27/22 – SpaceX CRS-26 Dock
11/26/22 – SpaceX CRS-26 Launch
11/9/22 – Cygnus CRS-18 Capture
11/7/22 – Cygnus CRS-18 Launch
10/27/22 – ISS Progress 82 Dock
10/25/22 – ISS Progress 82 Launch
10/23/22 — ISS Progress 80 Undock
10/14/22 – SpaceX Crew-4 Splashdown
10/6/22 – SpaceX Crew-5 Dock
10/5/22 – SpaceX Crew-5 Launch
9/29/22 – Soyuz MS-21 Undock/Land

Spacewalks

Date: Feb. 2, 2023
Duration: 6 hours, 41 minutes
Spacewalkers: Nicole Mann, Koichi Wakata

Date: Jan. 20, 2023
Duration: 7 hours, 21 minutes
Spacewalkers: Koichi Wakata, Nicole Mann

Date: Dec. 22, 2022
Duration: 7 hours, 8 minutes
Spacewalkers: Frank Rubio, Josh Cassada

Date: Dec. 3, 2022
Duration:7 hours, 5 minutes
Spacewalkers: Josh Cassada, Frank Rubio

Date: Nov. 17, 2022
Duration: 6 hours, 25 minutes
Spacewalkers: Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin

Date: Nov. 15, 2022
Duration: 7 hours, 11 minutes
Spacewalkers: Josh Cassada, Frank Rubio

Expedition 68 Image Gallery

442 Images

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Expedition 68 Resources

👁 Expedition 68 Crew Insignia

Mission Blogs

The daily blog updates for Expedition 68 highlighting crew and cargo missions, spacewalks, and advanced space research.

👁 The sun's first rays burst over the Earth's horizon

Mission Summary

Get an overview of the Expedition, its crew and the activities they are working on during this mission to the International Space Station.

👁 The Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction (SoFIE) Growth and Extinction Limits (GEL) experiment aboard the International Space Station (ISS) studies flame growth and extinction in an effort to improve fire safety in space. This image shows a sequence of snapshots taken about 3 seconds apart. During this test point, the ambient oxygen concentration starts relatively high (28%). Initially, the flame is seen as yellow and sooty. As the ambient pressure is reduced, the flame becomes bluer and continues to shrink until fully extinguished. This gives researchers pressure limit data points for flame extinction that could help improve crew and spacecraft safety for future exploration missions.

Mission Science

Learn more about the range of microgravity science encompassing human research, space phsyics, and more the Expedition 68 crew has conducted.

👁 The insignia representing the SpaceX Crew-4 mission

SpaceX Crew-4 Science

The SpaceX Crew-4 members explored artificial retina manufacturing, a garment packed with sensors that transmit scientific data, wireless monitoring of health data, and more.

👁 The official mission patch for NASA's SpaceX Crew-5 mission.

SpaceX Crew-5 Science

The SpaceX Crew-5 members investigated how space affects blood pressure, new treatments for heart disease, printing cardiac tissues samples, liquid behavior in space, and more.

👁 One of the Expedition 41 crew members aboard the International Space Station, flying at an altitude of 222 nautical miles above a point in the Atlantic Ocean several hundred miles off the coast of Africa near the Tropic of Cancer, photographed this eye-catching panorama of the night sky and the Milky Way on Sept. 27. NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, flight engineer, tweeted the image, which was taken with an electronic still camera, set with a 24mm focal length. In his accompanying comments, Wiseman stated, "Sahara sands make the Earth glow orange."

Mission Imagery

During Expedition 68, the crew took images of the Earth views, the orbiting station, their daily lives aboard and the experiments they conducted during their stay, plus so much more. Check out some of the image highlights from Expedition 68 in the gallery.

👁 The International Space Station