Three backgrounds in the same spacecraft
Soyuz MS-15 carried Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and Emirati pilot Hazza Ali Al Mansoori. Skripochka, the commander, had trained in mechanical engineering and was making his third spaceflight. Marine biologist Meir and Al Mansoori were flying for the first time. Although they launched together, their schedules differed from the outset: Skripochka and Meir would undertake a long-duration station mission, while Al Mansoori would visit for about eight days.
Al Mansoori flew under an arrangement between the United Arab Emirates and the Russian space agency, becoming the first Emirati in space. His mission also brought ground personnel from his country into the station’s operating network. Besides astronaut training, controllers from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre trained at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne and the Columbus Control Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.
Four-orbit rendezvous and a nine-person station
A Soyuz-FG rocket lifted off from Baikonur’s Launch Pad 1 in Kazakhstan at 13:57 on 25 September 2019. Flight times here use Coordinated Universal Time. It was the Soyuz-FG’s final crewed Soyuz launch. Contemporary spaceflight records also noted that the pad associated with Gagarin’s flight would enter a period of modernization.
After four Earth orbits, the spacecraft docked with the station’s Zvezda service module at 19:42. Rendezvous took less than six hours, but the hatches opened only at 22:12, when the newcomers joined the station crew. The brief handover period brought the station’s population to nine. Safety briefings, familiarization and cargo transfers then helped continue long-term research and maintenance.
Dubai consoles and the eight-day visit
ESA’s preflight operations report described two consoles installed at a new support center in Dubai, linked to the station through Columbus Control Centre communications. Calls normally used English, with direct Arabic communications also possible. The arrangement connected the national ground team, European controllers and orbital crew in the work surrounding the flight.
Al Mansoori’s research schedule included time-perception and microgravity-fluid experiments, with postflight measurements for projects on brain imaging and DNA aging. The Emirates News Agency’s return report described Earth and UAE photography, an Arabic-language tour of the station, and video and amateur-radio contacts with students. On 3 October 2019, he left with Alexey Ovchinin and Nick Hague aboard Soyuz MS-12, undocking at 07:37 and landing at 10:59. His visit ended while MS-15 remained at the station.
Research and maintenance during the longer stay
Meir and Skripochka continued their long-duration mission. Meir’s work included operating equipment, handling samples and taking part in human research. NASA’s records describe her maintaining combustion-research hardware, caring for mizuna plants used to study lighting and fertilizer conditions, and working with Andrew Morgan on bone-cell research. In March 2020, they helped set up an experiment growing heart precursor cells from stem cells for comparison with ground samples. Meir also used ultrasound to examine her own blood vessels for space-physiology research.
These experiments depended on continuing station operations. Meir and Christina Koch completed three spacewalks as an all-female pair, totaling 21 hours and 44 minutes. Research also relied on transport: Meir packed frozen samples into a cargo Dragon for return to Earth, where researchers would analyze them. Crew operations, observations and samples formed part of experiments completed through ground comparisons and analysis.
Returning with a different third crew member
Soyuz MS-15 undocked at 01:53 on 17 April 2020 and landed southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 05:16. Skripochka and Meir were still aboard, but Morgan now occupied the third seat. He had launched on Soyuz MS-13 on 20 July 2019 and spent about 272 days in space. Meir and Skripochka spent about 205 days; NASA counted approximately 3,280 Earth orbits for their mission.
Recovery crews conducted preliminary medical checks and transferred the astronauts onward, with the Russian and American crew members subsequently traveling to their respective countries. The departure opened another stage of long-duration station operations, while physiological follow-up continued after landing. The mission thus had several endpoints: the visitor returned in October 2019, MS-15 completed its transport assignment in April 2020, and research follow-up extended beyond the landing.