After a 6-hour flight, astronauts Mark Vande Hei, KG5GNP, and Joe Acaba, KE5DAR, and cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin arrived at the International Space Station on September 12. The trio launched aboard the Soyuz MS-06 spacecraft from Kazakhstan, orbited Earth four times, and then docked at the space station. The hatches between the spacecraft and station opened early on September 13.

The arrival of Vande Hei, Acaba, and Misurkin restores the station's crew to six. They join Expedition 53 Commander Randy Bresnik, and Flight Engineers Sergey Ryazanskiy and Paolo Nespoli, IZ0JPA, on station.

The new Expedition 53/54 crew members will spend more than 4 months aboard the ISS, conducting approximately 250 science investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences and technology development.

Once they've settled in, Acaba and Vande Hei are expected to average one or two — and possibly as many as four — Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) contacts a week. That rate will drop when Nespoli leaves in December with Bresnik and Ryazanskiy. Vande Hei, Acaba, and Misurkin are slated to return in February.