Expedition 18

Mission insignia
Number of crew	3
Launch	May 31, 2008 (STS-124), Oct. 12, 2008 (Soyuz TMA-13), November 14, 2008 (STS-126), March 15, 2009 (STS-119)
Launch craft	Soyuz TMA-13, STS-124 Space Shuttle Discovery (Chamitoff), STS-126 Space Shuttle Endeavour (Magnus), STS-119 Space Shuttle Discovery (Wakata)
Landing	April 8 2009
(Left to right) Koichi Wakata, Michael Fincke, Sandra Magnus, Yuri Lonchakov, Gregory Chamitoff
Previous expedition Next expedition Expedition 17 Expedition 19

Expedition 18 was the 18th permanent crew of the International Space Station (ISS). The first two crew members, Michael Fincke, and Yuri Lonchakov were launched on October 12, 2008, aboard Soyuz TMA-13. With them was astronaut Sandra Magnus, who joined the Expedition 18 crew after launching on STS-126 and remained until departing on STS-119 on March 25, 2009. She was replaced by JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata, who arrived at the ISS on STS-119 on March 17, 2009. Gregory Chamitoff, who joined Expedition 18 after Expedition 17 left the station^[1], ended his stay aboard ISS and returned to Earth with the STS-126 crew.

Contents 1 Crew 1.1 Crew notes 2 Backup crew 3 Mission plan 4 March 2009 debris incident 5 Extra-vehicular activity 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Crew

Position[2]	First Part (October 2008 to November 2008)	Second Part (November 2008 to March 2009)	Third Part (March 2009 to April 2009)
Commander	Michael Fincke, NASA 2nd spaceflight
Flight Engineer 1	Yuri Lonchakov, RSA 3rd spaceflight
Flight Engineer 2	Gregory Chamitoff, NASA 1st Spaceflight	Sandra Magnus, NASA 2nd spaceflight	Koichi Wakata, JAXA 3rd spaceflight

[edit] Crew notes

Salizhan Sharipov, was originally slated to be the Soyuz commander and Expedition 18 Flight Engineer 1, but was replaced by his back-up Yuri Lonchakov.

[edit] Backup crew

• Gennady Padalka - Commander - RSA (for Lonchakov)
• Michael Barratt- Flight Engineer - NASA (for Fincke)
• Timothy Kopra - Flight Engineer - NASA (for Chamitoff)
• Nicole Stott - Flight Engineer - NASA (for Magnus)
• Soichi Noguchi - Flight Engineer - JAXA (for Wakata)

[edit] Mission plan

• Launch vehicle: Soyuz TMA-13
• Launch date: Oct. 12, 2008 3:01 a.m. EDT
• Docking: Oct. 14, 2008
• Spacewalks: Dec. 22, 2008 (completed Dec. 23 and March 10, 2009}
• Landing: April 8, 2009

[edit] March 2009 debris incident

On March 12, 2009, a piece of debris from the upper stage of a Delta II rocket used to launch a GPS satellite in 1993, passed close to the ISS. The conjunction between the debris and the Space Station was not detected until it was too late to perform a collision avoidance manoeuvre. The crew prepared to evacuate the station by closing hatches between modules, and boarding the Soyuz spacecraft that was docked to provide emergency crew escape.^[3] The debris did not hit the station, instead it passed by at 16:38 UTC, and the crew were cleared to resume operations about five minutes later.^[3]

[edit] Extra-vehicular activity

Mission	Spacewalkers	Start (UTC)	End (UTC)	Duration
EVA 1	Yuri Lonchakov Michael Fincke	December 23 00:51	December 23 06:29	5 hours, 38 minutes
	Installed an electromagnetic energy measuring device, (Langmuir probe) on Pirs, removed the Russian Biorisk long-duration experiment, installed the Expose-R experiment package on Zvezda, but subsequently removed it after it failed to activate and transmit telemetry on ground command. Installed the Impulse experiment. EVA conducted from Pirs docking compartment in Russian Orlan space suits.[4][5]
EVA 2	Yuri Lonchakov Michael Fincke	March 10, 2009 16:22	March 10, 2009 21:11	4 hours, 49 minutes
	Installed the EXPOSE-R onto the universal science platform of the Zvezda module, removed tape straps from the area of the docking target on the Pirs airlock and docking compartment, inspected and photographed the exterior of the Russian portion of the station. EVA conducted from Pirs docking compartment in Russian Orlan space suits.[6]

[edit] See also

• Extra-vehicular activity
• List of cumulative spacewalk records
• List of spacewalks since 2000

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• NASA International Space Station page
• NASA Expedition 18 Page

v • d • e Expeditions to the International Space Station Completed: Expedition 1 • Expedition 2 • Expedition 3 • Expedition 4 • Expedition 5 • Expedition 6 • Expedition 7 • Expedition 8 • Expedition 9 • Expedition 10 • Expedition 11 • Expedition 12 • Expedition 13 • Expedition 14 • Expedition 15 • Expedition 16 • Expedition 17 • Expedition 18 • Expedition 19 • Expedition 20 • Expedition 21 Current: Expedition 22 Planned: Expedition 23 • Expedition 24 • Expedition 25 • Expedition 26 • Expedition 27 • Expedition 28 • Expedition 29 • Expedition 30 • Expedition 31 • Expedition 32 • Expedition 33