NASA News: New Crew Blasts into Space Station
On Saturday in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz TMA-20M rocket launched into outer space, carrying three new crew into the International Space Station.
According to NASA, the three new crew are part of the Expedition 47 and they are composed of Rocosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka, and NASA's Jeff Williams. Ovchinin will be the Soyuz's commander and around the bend are flight engineers Williams and Skripochka to ensure the trip's safety.
Expedition 47 will be running for five and a half months and the mission has been tasked to further research on the previous studies that seeks developments in NASA's "Journey to Mars."
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Williams is one proud member of the crew as he will become the only American who has spent the most days on board the ISS when he completes the mission. He is also a long-term resident of the space station and the first to blast into the ISS for three times.
Scott Kelly currently has the American record for the most cumulative days in the ISS as he spend a total of 520 days on the space station but Williams is expected to turn the tide and grab the record when he completes Expedition 47, with a total of 534 days.
Aside from Williams' records, the mission will also be the first to experience the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), which is the first expandable habitat that is expected to help improve the life of astronauts within space's harsh conditions. The crew won't be living in the BEAM as they are only tasked to evaluate the habitat - if it will be fit for succeeding astronauts to live in.
For the period of over five months, Expedition 47 will look into more than 250 science fields that are all set to improve not only Earth science but other fields as well including technology and physical sciences, marking another addition to the over 1,700 research investigations made on board the ISS.
