NASA TV to broadcast the departure and landing of the International Space Station’s Expedition 39/40 crew

(NASA astronaut, and the space station’s Expedition 40 commander, Steve Swanson along with cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev, both Roscosmos flight engineers – Photo Credit: NASA)

NASA Television have confirmed that they will broadcast the departure and landing of Steve Swanson, Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev: crew members aboard the International Space Station who will end their six month stay on the orbiting laboratory and return to Earth on September 10th.

Expedition 40 Commander Steve Swanson of NASA and Flight Engineers Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will undock from the space station in their Soyuz spacecraft at 11:01 p.m GMT (7:01 p.m. EDT) Sept. 10.

They are scheduled to land in Kazakhstan just 3 hours later, around 2:23 a.m GMT on September 11th, (10:23 p.m EDT and 8:23 a.m. Sept. 11, Kazakh time).

Their return will signal the end of their mission, marking the completion of 169 days in space since launching from Kazakhstan on March 26th. Swanson, Skvortsoz and Artemyev, the station’s Expedition 39/40 crew members, travelled almost 72 million miles while living and working in low-Earth orbit.

(Swanson, Skvortsoz and Artemyev’s launch from Kazakhstan as seen from the ISS – Photo Credit: NASA/Rick Mastracchio)

At the time of undocking, Expedition 41 will formally begin and the station will be under the command of Max Suraev of Roscosmos. Suraev, Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency will operate the station as a three-person crew for two weeks until the arrival of their new crew members.

NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova will launch from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on September 25/26th on a six-hour flight to the space station.

NASA TV will begin coverage of Expedition 39/40’s departure activities on September 9th, when Swanson will turn over control of station operations to Suraev during the change of command ceremony.

Below is a schedule of the coverage. All times are in GMT.

• Tuesday, Sept. 9:
  – 9:15 p.m. – Expedition 40/41 change of command ceremony
• Wednesday, Sept. 10:
  – 7:15 p.m. – Farewells and hatch closure coverage (hatch closure planned for 7:35 p.m.)
  – 10:45 p.m. – Undocking (undocking at 11:01 p.m.)
• Thursday, Sept. 11:
  – 1:15 a.m – Deorbit burn and landing coverage (deorbit burn at 1:31 a.m. and landing at 2:23 a.m.)

You can view all of these exciting programs here.