L-387: Full day at the NBL

One more full day of training at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) yesterday, together with veteran spacewalker Peggy Whitson.

First we practiced the replacement of a failed SASA antenna on the top of the truss. That’s our S-Band antenna, that provides the main audio, telemetry and commanding link to the ground. Since the spare SASA is tucked behind the truss, this is not a task that we can do with the support of the robotic arm. Instead, we practiced a leapfrogging technique making use of multiple APFRs (that’s the Articulating Portable Foot Restraint – see L-411 if you missed it!)

For this technique, one crewmember is in the APFR holding the antenna, the other crewmember rolls the APFR plate over towards the direction we need to move and then goes set up another APFR further along the path to receive the antenna. And so on for a few relay steps.

After that we practiced removing one of the four Control Moment Gyroscopes, the components that are used most of the time to maintain Station attitude.

In the picture composition (courtesy of +Lionel Ferra) you can see the briefing, the moment when we were lowered into the water and our helmet camera views.