Remember when I went to Svesda last October to take the measurements for my Sokol suit and to make the mold of my seat liner?
[If you don’t, you can check the Logbooks L-426 and L-415]
Well, last week it was time to go and check out the custom-made items that will fly to space with me!
It’s been pretty special. Of course, being in training to fly to space is something extraordinary every day. But there are things that make you feel closer to the actual spaceflight, that make it all more real: trying on the space suit that I will wear on my way to ISS and back was definitely one of those moments.
We started the day with an initial evaluation of the seat liner, both without the suit and with the suit. In the picture you can see the specialists feeling behind my neck, to make sure I had continuous contact. It’s very important at landing impact to distribute the load evenly all along the spine and the neck.
Then the specialists had me sit in a special suspended seat and determined my exact center of mass when curled up in the position that I will assume in the Soyuz. That information is passed on to the ballistics group, so that they can calculate the overall center of gravity of the vehicle.
Then we moved on to evaluating the Sokol at the overpressure of 0,4 atm, meaning in the condition that we would have in case of a depressurization of the Soyuz. Bear in mind that this is an emergency situation. Other than a spacewalking suit, the Sokol is not designed for you to work in this condition: it’s designed to give you maximum dexterity and freedom of movement when not inflated and to save your life in case of a depressurization.
Since it’s a soft shell, it gains significant volume at 0,4 atm overpressure: it become bulky, rigid and way bigger than your size, so that for example you need to lift your spine up if you want to keep your hands in the gloves. The expansion also leads to your lower torse hanging off your knees. In fact, the back of the knees is typically the most critical spot in terms of possible pain and circulation issue. But if the suit is well sized, there is enough space to actively offload some of that weight, alternating the two legs.
We test the suit in this condition for two hours: that is the maximum time that the crew would need to return to Earth with an emergency reentry after determining that the Soyuz is leaking. I didn’t have any significant issues with the suit – most small people like me don’t. Still, I was happy when the test was over and I could reopen that regulator!
(Trad IT) Traduzione in italiano a cura di +AstronautiNEWS qui:
https://www.astronautinews.it/tag/logbook/
(Trad ES) Tradducción en español aquí:
https://www.intervidia.com/category/bitacora/
(Trad FR) Traduction en français par +Anne Cpamoa ici:
https://spacetux.org/cpamoa/category/traductions/logbook-samantha/
15/02/2014