Expedition 61

Other crewed spaceflights to the ISS

According to a Flight Planning Integration Panel (FPIP) document obtained by NASAspaceflight.com in June 2019, Expedition 61 was tentatively scheduled to see two visits from Commercial Crew Development spacecraft. However, schedule slippages meant these visits will not occur.

• The Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission with American astronauts Bob Behnken and Douglas Hurley had a planning date for a 15 November 2019 launch and 22 November landing, with a brief stay on the ISS in between.
• The Boeing Crewed Flight Test of the Starliner capsule had a planning date for a 30 November 2019 launch. It was proposed American astronauts Mike Finke, Nicole Mann, and Chris Ferguson would dock to the International Space Station on 1 December and remain on the station until May 2020; it was unclear if these astronauts would have been formally considered ISS visitors, part of the Expedition 61 crew, or prompt the start of Expedition 62.

Spacewalks

Expedition 61 crew conducted nine spacewalks, more than in any other increment in the history of the ISS.

Four spacewalks were conducted to repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. The repairs were conducted by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan. Both of them were assisted by NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir who operated the Canadarm2 robotic arm from inside the Station. The spacewalks were described as the "most challenging since Hubble repairs".

There were multiple spacewalks in order to repair and improve ISS batteries. On 18 October 2019 Christina Koch and Jessica Meir took the first all female spacewalk in history.