Expedition 66

Expedition 66 was the 66th long-duration expedition to the International Space Station. The mission began after the departure of Soyuz MS-18 on 17 October 2021.^[2] It was commanded by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, the fourth European astronaut to command the ISS and first French astronaut to command the orbital laboratory^[3] until 8 November 2021 when Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, who arrived aboard Soyuz MS-19 and took over his command.^[4]

ISS Expedition 66

Promotional poster
Mission type	Long-duration mission to the ISS
Operator	NASA / Roscosmos
Mission duration	164 days, 6 hours and 7 minutes
Expedition
Space station	International Space Station
Began	17 October 2021, 01:14 UTC[1]
Ended	30 March 2022, 07:21:03[1]
Arrived aboard	SpaceX Crew-2 Soyuz MS-19 SpaceX Crew-3 Soyuz MS-21
Departed aboard	SpaceX Crew-2 Soyuz MS-19
Crew
Crew size	7-10
Members	Expedition 65/66: Shane Kimbrough Megan McArthur Akihiko Hoshide Thomas Pesquet[a] Anton Shkaplerov Expedition 64/65/66: Pyotr Dubrov Mark T. Vande Hei Expedition 66/67: Raja Chari Thomas Marshburn Matthias Maurer[b] Kayla Barron Oleg Artemyev Denis Matveev Sergey Korsakov
EVAs	4
EVA duration	25 hours 31 minutes
Expedition 66 mission patch, resembling that of U.S. Route 66 Expedition 66 crew portrait ISS expeditions ← Expedition 65 Expedition 67 →

Pesquet was transported to the ISS on SpaceX Crew-2 in April 2021, joined by NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.^[5] Crew-2 from Expedition 65 extended their tour of duty on the ISS to become part of Expedition 66,^[6] along with Russian cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who both launched on Soyuz MS-18 and returned to Earth on Soyuz MS-19, following their extended mission. Russian cosmonaut Shkaplerov launched on Soyuz MS-19, along with two participants in the joint film project between Roscosmos and Channel One, The Challenge: film director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild.

SpaceX Crew-3, launched 10 November 2021, carried NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, and Kayla Barron and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer to the ISS.^[7] At the end of Expedition 66, they remained on the ISS as part of Expedition 67 while Dubrov and Vande Hei returned to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-19.^[8] However, continued international collaboration has been thrown into doubt by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions on Russia.^[9]