Back into the ATV* world with Sasha at the European Astronaut Centre here in Cologne.
As the backup of Expedition 40, who will be on ISS for the most part of ATV5 mission, Sasha and I are receiving full training on ATV rendez-vous and docking monitoring and all attached phase operations, like water and gas transfer.
However, unless we really need to fly six months earlier – which is very unlikely! – or the launch of ATV5 slips significantly, my fellow Shenanigan Alex and his crewmates will take care of all those operations.
However, it is well possible that Sasha and I will be the ones closing the hatch and sending the very last ATV on its destructive ride through the atmosphere and into the ocean. So, today we had our introduction into departure operations. Much simpler than rendez-vous ops, as you can imagine: after all, when the general trajectory is “away” from you, as opposed to “towards” you, things are inevitably less complex.
Can you recognize ATV in the picture? That’s ATV2 Johannes Kepler after undocking, courtesy of Exp 28 (credit: NASA).
*In case you’re not familiar with ATV, this older Logbook has some general words.
(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://anne.cpamoa.free.fr/blog/index.php/category/logbook-samantha
25/11/2013