Expedition 38 is scheduled to conclude this month

Mar 4, 2014 13:53 GMT  ·  By
Expedition 38 crew members pose for the camera inside the JAXA Kibo module on the ISS, on February 22, 2014
   Expedition 38 crew members pose for the camera inside the JAXA Kibo module on the ISS, on February 22, 2014

Astronauts with the Expedition 38 crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) snapped this image of their merry group on February 22, 2014. Their arrangement is interesting, to say the least, as they were flying in microgravity in a circle at the time the photo was taken. The six crew members were inside the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Kibo experimental module. 

Going clockwise from top center, the image shows Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov, a cosmonaut with the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos), JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata, RosCosmos flight engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy, NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins, and RosCosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin.

Kotov, Ryazansky, and Hopkins are scheduled to return back to Earth aboard their Russian-built Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft sometime this month. Wakata, Tyurin, and Mastracchio will leave the ISS aboard their Soyuz TMA-11M capsule in May, after serving three months as part of the Expedition 39 crew.

Due to concerns about the long-term effects that exposure to microgravity can have on the human body, space agencies do not allow their astronauts to spend more than 6 months in space. Even so, ISS crew members have to go through a long period of rehabilitation once they come back home from space.