It started with the arrival of the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft carrying Aleksey Ovchinin, Nick Hague and Christina Koch,[3] joining Oleg Kononenko, David Saint-Jacques and Anne McClain who transferred from Expedition 58.

[1] Ovchinin and Hague were originally meant to fly to the ISS aboard Soyuz MS-10, but returned to Earth minutes after takeoff due to a contingency abort.

[4] The expedition formally ended with the undocking of the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft carrying Kononenko, Saint-Jacques and McClain on 24 June 2019; Ovchinin, Hague and Koch transferred to Expedition 60.

[2] Resupply missions that visited the International Space Station during Expedition 59: Researchers on Expedition 59 will conduct experimentation on tissue chips since the microgravity environment can replicate the effects of aging and disease.

The expedition will also conduct experiments on regolith simulants, Earth's atmospheric carbon cycle, and Astrobee robots designed to conduct routine chores aboard the ISS.