Expedition 6

Expedition 6 was a long-duration International Space Station increment flown by Kenneth Bowersox, Nikolai Budarin, and Donald Pettit. The crew launched on STS-113 in November 2002, took over the station after the Expedition 5 handover, and carried out station research, maintenance, and assembly work during the months that followed. The Columbia accident in February 2003 changed the planned shuttle rotation, so the crew remained aboard longer than expected and returned to Earth in Soyuz TMA-1. Bowersox and Pettit completed two EVAs during the increment to continue outfitting the P1 truss and reconfigure station power and thermal-control hardware.