Expedition 26 was the 26th long-duration mission to the International Space Station. The expedition's first three crew members – one US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts – arrived at the station on board Soyuz TMA-01M on 10 October 2010. Expedition 26 officially began the following month on 26 November, when half of the crew of the previous mission, Expedition 25, returned to Earth on board Soyuz TMA-19. The rest of the Expedition 26 crew – one US astronaut, one Russian cosmonaut and one ESA astronaut – joined the trio already on board when their spacecraft, Soyuz TMA-20, docked with the station on 17 December 2010.
Promotional Poster
(l-r) Skripochka, Kaleri, Kondratyev, Nespoli, Coleman and KellyISS expeditions← Expedition 25Expedition 27 →
Soyuz TMA-19 departs the ISS, marking the beginning of Expedition 26.
The Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft is rolled out by train on its way to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station assembled and maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA, Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada). The ISS is the largest space station ever built. Its primary purpose is to perform microgravity and space environment experiments.
Oblique underside view in November 2021
Comet Lovejoy photographed by Expedition 30 commander Dan Burbank
Expedition 8 Commander and Science Officer Michael Foale conducts an inspection of the Microgravity Science Glovebox
Fisheye view of several labs and the Space Shuttle