List of visiting expeditions to the International Space Station explained

Visiting expeditions to the International Space Station are teams of one to three astronauts who visit the ISS by Soyuz on short duration expeditions. EP-N is a term used by RKK Energia, meaning both "Visiting Crew"^[1] as "Visiting Expedition".^[2]

Humans have been on the ISS on a temporary basis since December 1998 and on a permanent basis since November 2000. The permanent occupation of the station is carried out by core crews, who usually stay for six months. Along with this, space shuttles have also been to the ISS during the construction of the station.

Three-seat, single-use Soyuz serve as lifeboats on the ISS, changing every six months. If transporting the core members does not fully occupy the Soyuz, the ships end up being crewed by astronauts returning after a week or ten days on the space shuttle (usually representatives of space agencies other than Russia or space tourists) or by the Soyuz. These crew members are the "visiting team" and their expeditions are called "visiting expeditions" (Russian: экспедиция посещения, or ЭП). In the period 2000–2002, when crews were switched to the space shuttle, visiting expeditions ended up being three people. From 2003 to 2009, there was only one seat available on the Soyuz in addition to two main crew seats. Since 2009, the main crews have been six crew members and the Soyuz was solely used for its transportation until the Crew Dragon launch. The next short visit did not occur until September 2015, in connection with the one-year mission to the ISS, and then in 2019.

Continued international collaboration on ISS missions has been thrown into doubt by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions on Russia.^[3]

List

• Dates beside "Expedition X" are from the stay at the station.

Nº^[4]	Crew^[5]	Image	Launch (UTC)	Landing (UTC)	Backup	Ref.
1st Visiting Expedition 30 April 2001 – 6 May 2001
1	Talgat Musabayev Yuri Baturin Dennis Tito		28 April 2001 07:37:19 (Soyuz TM-32)	6 May 2001 05:41:28 (Soyuz TM-31)	Viktor Afanasyev Konstantin Kozeyev	^[6] ^[7]
2nd Visiting Expedition Andromeda Program 23 October 2001 – 31 October 2001
2	Viktor Afanasyev Claudie Haigneré Konstantin Kozeyev		21 October 2001 08:59:34 (Soyuz TM-33)	31 October 2001 04:59:25 (Soyuz TM-32)	Sergei Zalyotin Nadezhda Kuzhelnaya	^[8] ^[9]
3rd Visiting Expedition Marco Polo Program 27 April 2002 – 5 May 2002
3	Yuri Gidzenko Roberto Vittori Mark Shuttleworth		25 April 2002 06:26:35 (Soyuz TM-34)	5 May 2002 03:51:40 (Soyuz TM-33)	Gennady Padalka Oleg Kononenko	^[10] ^[11]
4th Visiting Expedition Odissea Program 1 November 2002 – 9 November 2002
4	Sergei Zalyotin Frank De Winne Yuri Lonchakov		30 October 2002 03:11:10 (Soyuz TMA-1)	10 November 2002 00:04:20 (Soyuz TM-34)	Yuri Lonchakov Aleksandr Lazutkin	^[12] ^[13]
5th Visiting Expedition Cervantes Program 20 October 2003 – 27 October 2003
5	Pedro Duque		18 October 2003 05:38:03 (Soyuz TMA-3)	28 October 2003 02:40:20 (Soyuz TMA-2)	André Kuipers	^[14] ^[15]
6th Visiting Expedition Delta Program 21 April 2004 – 29 April 2004
6	André Kuipers		19 April 2004 03:19:00 (Soyuz TMA-4)	30 April 2004 00:11:15 (Soyuz TMA-3)	Gerhard Thiele	^[16] ^[17]
7th Visiting Expedition 16 October 2004 – 24 October 2004
7	Yuri Shargin		14 October 2004 03:06:27 (Soyuz TMA-5)	24 October 2004 00:35:08 (Soyuz TMA-4)	Without backup.	^[18] ^[19]
8th Visiting Expedition Eneid Program 17 April 2005 – 24 April 2005
8	Roberto Vittori		15 April 2005 00:46:25 (Soyuz TMA-6)	24 April 2005 22:08:27 (Soyuz TMA-5)	Robert Thirsk	^[20] ^[21]
9th Visiting Expedition 3 October 2005 – 10 October 2005
9	Gregory Olsen		1 October 2005 03:54:53 (Soyuz TMA-7)	11 October 2005 01:09:47 (Soyuz TMA-6)		^[22] ^[23]
10th Visiting Expedition Missão Centenário 1 April 2006 – 8 April 2006
10	Marcos Pontes		30 March 2006 02:30:20 (Soyuz TMA-8)	8 April 2006 23:47:12 (Soyuz TMA-7)	Sergey Volkov	^[24] ^[25]
	Spaceflight participant
11th Visiting Expedition 20 September 2006 – 29 September 2006
11	Anousheh Ansari		19 September 2006 04:08:42 (Soyuz TMA-9)	29 September 2006 01:13:37 (Soyuz TMA-8)	Without backup.	^[26] ^[27]
12th Visiting Expedition 9 April 2007 – 21 April 2007
12	Charles Simonyi		7 April 2007 17:31:14 (Soyuz TMA-10)	21 April 2007 12:31:04 (Soyuz TMA-9)	Without backup.	^[28] ^[29]
13th Visiting Expedition 12 October 2007 – 21 October 2007
13	Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor		10 October 2007 13:22:38 (Soyuz TMA-11)	21 October 2007 10:35:49 (Soyuz TMA-10)	Faiz Khaleed	^[30] ^[31]
	Spaceflight participant
14th Visiting Expedition Korean Astronaut Program 10 April 2008 – 19 April 2008
14	Yi So-yeon		8 April 2008 11:16:38 (Soyuz TMA-12)	19 April 2008 08:29:43 (Soyuz TMA-11)	Ko San	^[32] ^[33]
	Spaceflight participant
15th Visiting Expedition Generation II Astronaut 14 October 2008 – 24 October 2008
15	Richard Garriott		12 October 2008 07:01:33 (Soyuz TMA-13)	24 October 2008 03:36:49 (Soyuz TMA-12)	bgcolor=#7fffdd rowspan="2"	Nik Halik	bgcolor=#7fffdd rowspan="2"	^[34] ^[35]
16th Visiting Expedition 28 March 2009 – 8 April 2009
16	Charles Simonyi		26 March 2009 11:49:18 (Soyuz TMA-14)	8 April 2009 07:15:09 (Soyuz TMA-13)	Esther Dyson	bgcolor=#7fffdd rowspan="2"	^[36] ^[37]
17th Visiting Expedition Poetic Social Mission 2 October 2009 – 11 October 2009
17	Guy Laliberté		30 September 2009 07:14:44 (Soyuz TMA-16)	11 October 2009 04:31:43 (Soyuz TMA-14)	Barbara Barrett	bgcolor=#7fffdd rowspan="2"	^[38] ^[39]
18th Visiting Expedition 4 September 2015 – 19 September 2015
18	Andreas Mogensen Aidyn Aimbetov		2 September 2015 04:37:43 (Soyuz TMA-18M)	12 September 2015 00:51:30 (Soyuz TMA-16M)	Thomas Pesquet Sergey Prokopyev	^[40] ^[41]
19th Visiting Expedition UAE Astronaut Mission 1 25 September 2019 – 3 October 2019
19	Hazza Al Mansouri		25 September 2019 13:57:42 (Soyuz MS-15)	3 October 2019 10:59:21 (Soyuz MS-12)	Sultan Al Neyadi	^[42] ^[43]
	Visiting astronaut
Visiting Expedition Vyzov 5 October 2021 – 17 October 2021
–	Klim Shipenko Yulia Peresild		5 October 2021 08:55:02 (Soyuz MS-19)	17 October 2021 04:35:42 (Soyuz MS-18)	Aleksei Dudin Alyona Mordovina	^[44] ^[45] ^[46] ^[47] ^[48]
	Spaceflight participants
20th Visiting Expedition 8 December 2021 – 20 December 2021
20	Aleksandr Misurkin Yusaku Maezawa Yozo Hirano		8 December 2021 07:38:15 (Soyuz MS-20)	20 December 2021 03:13:18 (Soyuz MS-20)	Alexandr Skvortsov Shun Ogiso	^[49] ^[50]
21st Visiting Expedition 23 March 2024 – 6 April 2024
21	Oleg Novitsky Marina Vasilevskaya			23 March 2024 12:36:10 (Soyuz MS-25)		6 April 2024 07:17:47 (Soyuz MS-24)	Ivan Vagner Anastasia Lenkova	^[51] ^[52] ^[53] ^[54]

Cancelled

Expeditions canceled due to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Crew	Launch	Duration	Backup	Ref.
5th Visiting Expedition
Gennady Padalka Pedro Duque	28 April 2003 (Soyuz TMA-2A)	10 days	Sergei Krikalev Oleg Kotov	^[55] ^[56]
6th Visiting Expedition
Sergei Krikalev André Kuipers	18 October 2003 (Soyuz TMA-3A)	10 days	Yury Onufriyenko Oleg Skripochka	^[57]

See also

• Space tourism
• Spaceflight participant
• List of human spaceflights
• List of ESA space expeditions
• List of International Space Station expeditions

Notes and References

1. Web site: ISS EP-1. 2021-08-08. https://web.archive.org/web/20101129150324/http://astronautix.com/flights/issep1.htm. 2010-11-29. dead.
2. Web site: Новости. РОСКОСМОС ПРИВЕТСТВУЕТ НА ЗЕМЛЕ ЭКИПАЖ ЭКСПЕДИЦИИ 43/44. www.roscosmos.ru. ru. 2019-07-21.
3. Witze . Alexandra . Russia's invasion of Ukraine is redrawing the geopolitics of space . Nature . 13 March 2022 . 10.1038/d41586-022-00727-x . 11 March 2022. 35277688 . 247407886 .
4. Web site: 9 October 2021 . Expeditions . 9 October 2021.
5. Web site: Ivanov . Ivan . 26 September 2019 . Космическая энциклопедия ASTROnote . ru.
6. Web site: 2014 . Экспедиция МКС-2 Первая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
7. Web site: 12 August 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TM-32 . 8 August 2021.
8. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-3 Вторая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
9. Web site: 12 August 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TM-33 . 8 August 2021.
10. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-4 Третья российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
11. Web site: 29 March 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TM-34 . 8 August 2021.
12. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-5 Четвертая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
13. Web site: 13 August 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-1 . 8 August 2021.
14. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-8 Пятая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
15. Web site: 29 March 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-3 . 8 August 2021.
16. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-9 Шестая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
17. Web site: 13 August 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-4 . 8 August 2021.
18. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-10 Седьмая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
19. Web site: 29 March 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-5 . 8 August 2021.
20. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-11 Восьмая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
21. Web site: 13 August 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-6 . 8 August 2021.
22. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-12 Девятая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
23. Web site: 29 March 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-7 . 8 August 2021.
24. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-13 Десятая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
25. Web site: 29 March 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-8 . 8 August 2021.
26. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-14 Одиннадцатая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
27. Web site: 29 March 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-9 . 8 August 2021.
28. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-15 Двенадцатая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
29. Web site: 29 March 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-10 . 8 August 2021.
30. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-16 Тринадцатая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
31. Web site: 13 August 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-11 . 8 August 2021.
32. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-17 Четырнадцатая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
33. Web site: 29 March 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-12 . 8 August 2021.
34. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-18 Пятнадцатая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
35. Web site: 29 March 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-13 . 8 August 2021.
36. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-19/20 Шестнадцатая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
37. Web site: 29 March 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-14 . 8 August 2021.
38. Web site: Экспедиция МКС-21/22 Семнадцатая российская экспедиция посещения . ru.
39. Web site: 13 August 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-16 . 8 August 2021.
40. Web site: 2 May 2021 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-18M . 20 January 2022.
41. Web site: 13 August 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz TMA-16M . 20 January 2022.
42. Web site: Хроника подготовки и полёта корабля "Союз МС-15" . ru.
43. Web site: 13 August 2020 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz MS-15 . 8 August 2021.
44. Web site: Soyuz MS-19 delivers "movie crew" . 5 October 2021.
45. Web site: 5 October 2021 . Началась экспедиция "Вызова"! . 5 October 2021 . ru.
46. Web site: 5 October 2021 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz MS-19 . 5 October 2021.
47. Web site: Основные работы в период экспедиции МКС-66 . 5 October 2021 . ru.
48. Web site: 17 October 2021 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz MS-18 . 17 October 2021.
49. Web site: 28 June 2021 . Приглашение представителей японских СМИ на освещение подготовки к полету космических туристов . 14 August 2021 . ru.
50. Web site: 20 December 2021 . Spaceflight mission report: Soyuz MS-20 . 20 December 2021.
51. Web site: Pearlmanpublished . Robert Z. . 23 March 2024 . Flight attendant becomes 1st Belarusian in space on ISS-bound Soyuz launch . 23 March 2024 . Space.com . en.
52. Web site: Pearlmanpublished . Robert Z. . 23 March 2024 . Flight attendant becomes 1st Belarusian in space on ISS-bound Soyuz launch . 23 March 2024 . Space.com . en.
53. Web site: Imgur . imgur.com . 13 August 2022 . Imgur . en.
54. Web site: Belarusian female astronaut to go ISS in March 2024 — Roscosmos . 30 May 2023 . TASS.
55. Web site: Сформированы экипажи МКС-ЭП5 и МКС-ЭП6 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20030926183114/http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/content/numbers/241/13.shtml . 26 September 2003 . 8 August 2021 . ru.
56. Web site: Soyuz TMA-2A . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20161228025024/http://astronautix.com/s/soyuztma-2a.html . 28 December 2016 . 8 August 2021.
57. Web site: Soyuz TMA-3A . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20161227201444/http://astronautix.com/s/soyuztma-3a.html . 27 December 2016 . 8 August 2021.