ISS Expedition 40/41

Mission Profile

Overview

ESA geophysicist Alexander Gerst made his spaceflight debut on this expedition pairing, riding Soyuz TMA-13M to orbit alongside Soyuz commander Maxim Suraev and NASA's Reid Wiseman. Gerst named his stint the Blue Dot mission, after Carl Sagan's description of Earth in the famous Voyager photograph, and packed it with roughly forty experiments spanning materials physics, human physiology, radiation biology and astrophysics. The trio joined the resident Expedition 40 crew, then formed the core of Expedition 41 after their predecessors departed in September. Gerst stepped outside the station on a spacewalk and operated the robotic arm to capture visiting cargo craft. After 166 days that included spectacular Earth-observation photography shared widely on social media, the crew returned to a snowy Kazakh landing on 10 November 2014.

Crew

Key Milestones

1. 2014-05-28

   Soyuz TMA-13M launches Suraev, Wiseman and Gerst from Baikonur

2. 2014-09-10

   Expedition 41 begins as the previous crew departs aboard Soyuz TMA-12M

3. 2014-10-07

   Gerst and Wiseman conduct a spacewalk outside the US segment

4. 2014-11-10

   Suraev, Wiseman and Gerst land safely after Gerst's 166-day Blue Dot mission

Key Achievements

• Alexander Gerst's first spaceflight — ESA's Blue Dot mission with around 40 experiments

• Gerst performed a spacewalk and robotic-arm captures of visiting cargo vehicles

• 166-day long-duration flight for Gerst

• Widely shared Earth-observation photography raising ISS public profile

Related Missions

Sources

1. Wikipedia — Expedition 41
2. ESA — Blue Dot key dates and facts
3. NASA — Preparations for Expedition 40/41 Launch