Soyuz hatch opens, Expedition 69 expands to 10 crewmates
by Staff Writers
Houston TX (SPX) Sep 18, 2023

The hatches between the International Space Station and the newly arrived Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft officially opened at 5:16 p.m. EDT. The arrival of three new crew members to the existing seven people already aboard for Expedition 69 temporarily increases the station's population to 10.

NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub joined the space station's Expedition 69 crew of NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Frank Rubio, Roscosmos cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin, Konstantin Borisov, and Sergey Prokopyev, as well ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen and JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa. O'Hara will spend six months aboard the orbital laboratory, while Kononenko and Chub will both spend one year on the orbital outpost.

On Sept. 27, Rubio, Petelin, and Prokopyev will return to Earth on the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft. The trio have been aboard the orbital laboratory since arriving Sept. 21, 2022.

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