NASA Astronaut Whitson Assumes Command Over International Space Station Crew

A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut Peggy Whitson has assumed command over the International Space Station (ISS) amid upcoming return of the 50th crew commander, astronaut Shane Kimbrough, to Earth, NASA said in a statement Sunday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – On April 10, Kimbrough along with Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko will leave the ISS onboard the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft.

Whitson, Roscosmos’s Oleg Novitskiy and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet will stay at the ISS.

Earlier this month, NASA decided to extend Whitson’s mission for another three month till September. It is planned that she would come back to Earth along with NASA’s Jack Fischer and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin.

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