List of ISS commanders

The list of ISS commanders shows all previous commanders of the International Space Station .

Expeditions and command posts

→ Main article : International Space Station #Crews

Since the International Space Station went into operation in autumn 2000, the permanent crew has consisted of two to six people, including the ISS commander as the head of the team. The operation of the space station is divided into periods called "expeditions". The ISS command is handed over to the next commander in a traditional ceremony before the end of an expedition ( change of command ). Due to this handover time before the end of the expedition - not necessarily on the same day - the periods of command and expeditions are similar, but not identical.

Up to expedition 12 , an expedition and therefore a command post lasted about six months, with initially three and later two crew members flying together to the ISS and then returning from there together. When the crew strength increased from two to three space travelers with the ISS Expedition 13 , the third crew member reached the ISS independently of the two with a space shuttle and belonged to two expeditions in succession in overlapping times. In these cases, an ISS spaceman was on board earlier than his future commander.

Since Expedition 20 , the ISS crew has normally consisted of six people and each spaceman takes part in two successive expeditions. Although the flight times of the astronauts are still around six months, the duration of the expedition and thus the duration of the command are reduced to around two to four months.

List of commanders

The day of the official handover of control is indicated in US time (usually EDT / EST ) or coordinated universal time (UTC). Since no times are taken into account, the actual duration of the command offices can differ by one day from the specified time periods.

For the sake of simplicity, the commanders are only assigned to the expeditions in which the vast majority of their term of office falls. In fact, they took over command shortly before the end of the previous expedition.

Exp.	Surname	Country	Beginning	Days ± 1	comment
1	William Shepherd	United States	0Nov 2, 2000	137	first commander of the ISS, crew consisted of three people
2	Yuri Usachev	Russia	19 Mar 2001	151
3	Frank Culbertson	United States	Aug 17, 2001	117
4th	Yuri Onufrijenko	Russia	Dec 12, 2001	180	Former Mir Commandant (1996)
5	Valery Korsun	Russia	June 10, 2002	172	former Mir-Commander (1996-97)
6th	Kenneth Bowersox	United States	Nov 29, 2002	155
7th	Yuri Malenchenko	Russia	0May 3, 2003	174	The crew was reduced to two after the Columbia disaster .
8th	Michael Foale	United States	Oct. 24, 2003	185
9	Gennadi Padalka	Russia	Apr. 26, 2004	179
10	Leroy Chiao	United States	Oct 22, 2004	182
11	Sergei Krikalev	Russia	Apr 22, 2005	169
12	William S. McArthur	United States	0Oct 8, 2005	182
13	Pavel Vinogradov	Russia	0Apr 8, 2006	172	In the course of the expedition the crew was increased again to three people.
14th	Michael López-Alegría	United States	27 Sep 2006	202	Longest ISS command to date
15th	Fyodor Yurchikhin	Russia	Apr 17, 2007	185
16	Peggy Whitson	United States	Oct 19, 2007	181	first female ISS commander
17th	Sergei Volkov	Russia	Apr 17, 2008	188	first spaceman to take command of the ISS on his maiden flight
18th	Edward Fincke	United States	Oct 22, 2008	162
19th	Gennadi Padalka	Russia	0Apr 2, 2009	57	First spaceman to take on a second ISS command. Expansion of the team to six people with Expedition 20; the command changes when half the crew is replaced.
20th			May 29, 2009	133
21st	Frank De Winne	Belgium	0Oct 9, 2009	46	first Belgian commandant; Shortest ISS command to date
22nd	Jeffrey Williams	United States	Nov 24, 2009	113
23	Oleg Kotov	Russia	17th Mar 2010	75
24	Alexander Skvortsov	Russia	May 31, 2010	114
25th	Douglas Wheelock	United States	22 Sep 2010	63
26th	Scott Kelly	United States	Nov 24, 2010	110
27	Dmitri Kondratiev	Russia	14 Mar 2011	69
28	Andrei Borisenko	Russia	May 22, 2011	115
29	Mike Fossum	United States	Sep 14 2011	67
30th	Dan Burbank	United States	Nov 20, 2011	157
31	Oleg Kononenko	Russia	Apr 25, 2012	65
32	Gennadi Padalka	Russia	June 29, 2012	78
33	Sunita Williams	United States	Sep 15 2012	63
34	Kevin Ford	United States	Nov 17, 2012	116
35	Chris Hadfield	Canada	13 Mar 2013	60	first Canadian commander
36	Pavel Vinogradov	Russia	May 12, 2013	120
37	Fyodor Yurchikhin	Russia	0Sep 9 2013	62
38	Oleg Kotov	Russia	Nov 10, 2013	119
39	Kōichi Wakata	Japan	09 Mar 2014	64	first Japanese commander
40	Steven Swanson	United States	May 12, 2014	120
41	Maxim Surayev	Russia	0Sep 9 2014	60
42	Barry Wilmore	United States	0Nov 8, 2014	122
43	Terry Virts	United States	10 Mar 2015	92
44	Gennadi Padalka	Russia	June 10, 2015	87
45	Scott Kelly	United States	05th Sep 2015	97	Long term stay
46			Dec 11, 2015	80
47	Timothy copra	United States	Feb. 29, 2016	109
48	Jeff Williams	United States	17th June 2016	80
49	Anatoly Ivanishin	Russia	05th Sep 2016	53
50	Shane Kimbrough	United States	Oct 28, 2016	163
51	Peggy Whitson	United States	0Apr 9, 2017	53	Peggy Whitson took part in Expedition 52 as a flight engineer after her command post.
52	Fyodor Yurchikhin	Russia	0June 1, 2017	92
53	Randolph Bresnik	United States	0Sep 1 2017	103
54	Alexander Missurkin	Russia	Dec 13, 2017	75
55	Anton Schkaplerow	Russia	Feb. 26, 2018	95
56	Andrew Feustel	United States	0June 1, 2018	124
57	Alexander Gerst	Germany	0Oct 3, 2018	76	first German commander
58	Oleg Kononenko	Russia	Dec 18, 2018	87	Substitution of Alexei Ovchinin as commander of Expedition 58 after a false start of Soyuz MS-10
59			15th Mar 2019	101
60	Alexei Ovchinin	Russia	June 24, 2019	100	instead of - as originally planned - Expedition 58
61	Luca Parmitano	Italy	0Oct 2, 2019	126	first Italian and first southern European commander
62	Oleg Skripochka	Russia	0Feb 5, 2020	70
63	Chris Cassidy	United States	Apr 15, 2020

See also

• List of ISS expeditions
• List of spacemen on the International Space Station
• List of manned missions to the International Space Station

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Soyuz TM-31 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed on September 28, 2019 (English).
2. ↑ Usachyov, Yuri Vladimirovich in the Encyclopedia Astronautica, accessed on September 28, 2019 (English).
3. ↑ ^{a b} Culbertson, Frank Lee Jr in the Encyclopedia Astronautica, accessed on September 28, 2019 (English). The takeover by Culbertson on August 17, 2001 and 117 days in the command post resulted in a handover to Onufrijenko on December 12.
4. ↑ STS-111. NASA, accessed September 29, 2019 . 
5. ↑ ISS: Expedition 6 on Spacefacts.de, accessed on September 29, 2019.
6. ↑ International Space Station Status Report # 03-21 . NASA, May 4, 2003.
7. ^ Mission Status Center . Spaceflight Now, October 24, 2003.
8. ↑ Space station crews transfer commands . NBC News, April 28, 2004.
9. ^ Expedition 9 crew heading home after the 6-month mission . Spaceflight Now, October 22, 2004.
10. ↑ The ARRL Letter , Vol. 24, No. 16th American Radio Relay League , April 22, 2005.
11. ↑ NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status October 9, 2005 . NASA, October 11, 2005.
12. ↑ The ARRL Letter, Vol. 25, No. 14 . American Radio Relay League, April 7, 2006.
13. ^ Expedition 13 crew heads back to Earth in phys.org . United Press International, September 28, 2006.
14. ^ Tariq Malik: Weather Delays Space Station Crew's Landing . Space.com, April 18, 2007.
15. ^ First Woman Station Commander Arrives for Historic Spaceflight . NASA, 2017.
16. ^ William Harwood: Station crew OK after Soyuz capsule lands short of target . Spaceflight Now, April 19, 2008.
17. ^ ISS Expedition 17/18 Change of Command Ceremony . Collectspace, Youtube video from October 22, 2008.
18. ^ William Harwood: Weather causes one-day delay in Soyuz landing . Spaceflight Now, April 5, 2009.
19. ↑ ISS: Expedition 20 on Spacefacts.de, accessed on September 29, 2019.
20. ↑ Doug Messier: Laliberte, ISS Crew Prepare for Departure as ESA Astronaut Assumes Command . Parabolic Arc, October 10, 2009.
21. ↑ ISS: Expedition 21 on Spacefacts.de, accessed on September 30, 2019.
22. ^ ISS Change of Command as Russian American Crew readies Earth return . Universe Today, March 17, 2010.
23. ^ Change of Command on ISS . NASA video on Youtube, March 25, 2017.
24. ^ Space Station Command Changes Hands . NASA video on Youtube, September 22, 2009.
25. ↑ Ralf Möllenbeck: Transfer of command and a lift . Raumfahrer.net, November 25, 2010.
26. ^ ISS Change of Command Marked by Ceremony . NASA video on Youtube, March 14, 2011.
27. ^ William Harwood: Space station change-of-command ceremony . CBS News, September 22, 2011.
28. ^ NASA's Fossum Given ISS Command . NASA video on Youtube, September 14, 2011.
29. ↑ Pete Harding: Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft returns to Earth with three crewmembers . Nasaspaceflight.com, November 21, 2011.
30. ^ Station Change of Command Ceremony . NASA video on Youtube, April 25, 2012.
31. ^ ISS Command Changes Hands . NASA video on Youtube, June 29, 2012.
32. ↑ ISS Helm's Handoff . NASA video on Youtube, September 15, 2012.
33. ^ New Command on ISS . NASA video on Youtube, November 17, 2012.
34. ^ Robert Pearlman: Canada in Charge: Astronaut Becomes 1st Canadian Space Station Commander . Space.com, March 14, 2013.
35. ^ Transfer of Command Ceremony from Hadfield to Vinogradov . Canadian Space Agency video on Youtube, May 12, 2013.
36. ^ Station Change of Command Ceremony . NASA video on Youtube, September 9, 2013.
37. ↑ Keith Cowing: Expedition 37 Crew and Olympic Torch Return to Earth . Spaceref, November 10, 2013.
38. ^ Robert Pearlman: Kibo Commander: Koichi Wakata Becomes 1st Japanese to Command Space Station . Space.com, March 10, 2014.
39. ^ Expedition 39/40 Change of Command Ceremony . NASA video on Youtube, May 12, 2014.
40. ^ Expedition 40/41 Change of Command Aboard Station . NASA video on Youtube, September 9, 2014.
41. ↑ Ben Evans: After Soyuz TMA-13M Landing, Expedition 42 Stands Primed for Ambitious Mission . AmericaSpace, Nov. 10, 2014.
42. ^ William Harwood: Soyuz lands in Kazakhstan, returning international crew home . Spaceflight Now, March 12, 2015.
43. ^ Space Station Live: Change of Command . NASA video, June 10, 2015.
44. ^ William Harwood: Kelly assumes command of space station . Spaceflight Now, September 5, 2015.
45. ↑ ISS: Expedition 46 on Spacefacts.de, accessed on September 29, 2019.
46. ^ After nearly a year in space, Scott Kelly craves human contact . CTV News, February 29, 2016.
47. ^ Astronaut Tim Peake touches down on earth after space mission . BBC, June 18, 2016.
48. ↑ William Harwood: Station fliers return to Earth with flawless landing . CBS News, September 6, 2016.
49. ^ Tomasz Nowakowski: Expedition 49 trio ready to leave International Space Station . Spaceflight Insider, October 29, 2016.
50. ^ Sarah Lewin: First Female Space Station Commander Takes Helm Again: Watch Live Today . Space.com, April 9, 2017.
51. ↑ Derek Richardson: Soyuz MS-03 crew returns to Earth after nearly 200 days in space . Spaceflight Insider, June 2, 2017.
52. ↑ Ken Kremer: NASA's Peggy Whitson Safely Returns Home in Soyuz from Record Breaking Stay in Space . Universe Today, September 3, 2017.
53. ^ ISS Expedition 53/54 Change of Command Ceremony (Bresnik hands over ISS command to Misurkin) . nasa.gov, accessed September 30, 2019.
54. ↑ Christine Lunsford: Space Station Photos: Expedition 55 Crew in Orbit . Space.com, March 4, 2018.
55. ^ William Harwood: One station crew heads home, another preps for launch . Spaceflight Now, June 2, 2018.
56. ↑ Chris Gebhardt: Soyuz MS-08 lands as station crew to reduce to five people . Nasaspaceflight.com, October 4, 2018.
57. ^ Derek Richardson: Home for Christmas: Soyuz MS-09 crew lands in Kazakhstan . Spaceflight Insider, December 20, 2018.
58. ^ ISS: Expedition 59 . Spacefacts.de, accessed on September 29, 2019.
59. ↑ Chris Bergin: Soyuz MS-11 returns ISS trio back to Earth . Nasaspaceflight.com, June 24, 2019.
60. ↑ Expedition60 to Expedition 61 Change of Command Ceremony - October 2, 2019 . NASA video on Youtube, October 2, 2019.
61. ↑ Stephen Clark: Live coverage: Space station crew readies for return to Earth . Spaceflight Now, February 6, 2019.
62. ↑ Expedition 62 to 63 Change of Command Ceremony - April 15, 2020 . NASA video on Youtube, April 16, 2020.