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Today Terry and I were joined by my fellow Shenanigan Alex in a class on planned in-flight maintenance tasks. Actually, although Alex just arrived in Japan, I guess you could say that it’s the two of us who joined him: as his backup crew, we learned about the maintenance activities that are planned for Alex’ increment this summer. One of the most important ones is the likely replacement of a cooling pump inside the Japanese laboratory JEM. Like the other modules, JEM has two cooling loops set at different temperatures: the LTL (Low Temperature Loop) and the MTL (Medium Temperature Loop). Each loop has its own pump to circulate the cooling water and nominally the loops are separate. However, the JEM LTL pump has been misbehaving lately. Troubleshooting is ongoing and the loops are currently connected, with water being circulated by the MTL pump only. Although all operations in the JEM can be run nominally, this is a rather uncomfortable condition to be in, because there is no redundancy. A replacement of the LTL pump with a spare might become necessary. As we learned today, the most complicated thing in this operation is the rotation of the Deck1 rack to gain access to the pump. In the recent snapshot from the onboard camera you can see the rack rotated to allow the ongoing troubleshooting efforts. What makes it quite time-consuming is that a number of ventilation ducts running between the rack and the endcone need to be disconnected at somewhat hard-to-reach locations. Sometimes being a good astronaut is about finding the right body position to reach a bolt in a tight space! #SamLogbook   #Futura (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/

Very timely class today for Terry and myself at JAXA. Just a few hours ago on ISS a last group of CubeSats was deployed by the Japanese robotic arm (JEM RMS) and we got trained today just on that: crew operations in support of such deployments. In fact, it seems that the JEM RMS will be busy launching nanosatellites in the coming years. It’s a great way to put small, relatively simple hardware on orbit at an affordable price! So, how are the nanosatellites deployed? They arrive to ISS on a cargo vehicle, mounted in an assembly that includes not only the satellite itself, but also the deployment system: as far as I understand, that’s a simple spring-loaded mechanism. The task of the astronauts is to mount the satellite/deployment system combination on a dedicated platform, that can be grappled by the robotic arm. As you can see in the picture, the arm then moves into a release position – one that makes sense from an orbital mechanics point of view – and the release system is activated. In an instant, the nanosatellites are on their way to do whatever job the designers constructed them for. You might be asking yourself now how the platform with the satellites get outside of ISS to be grabbed by the JEM RMS. Well, the JEM has this really cool piece of hardware: an actual airlock. Crewmembers attach the platform with the satellite to an interface, which is mounted on a slide table. Slide the table into the airlock, close the internal hatch, depress the airlock, slide the table out onto the JEM Exposed facility; then release the platform from the slide table, but only after the JEM RMS has grappled it. After the satellites are on their way, the JEM RMS brings the now empty platform back to the slide table, so that it can be brought back inside, ready for the next batch of nanosatellites. (Picture: NASA) #SamLogbook   #Futura (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/

Today Terry and I had some introductory classes on the JAXA payload racks, which provide resources to run different types of experiment in the microgravity environment of ISS. One of the racks is Saibo, which means “living cell” in Japanese. Just like the Biolab rack in ESA’s Columbus laboratory, Saibo provides an environment to run life science experiments, for example involving plants or cell cultures. The temperature, humidity and CO2 content of the atmosphere are controlled and continuously monitored. Saibo, just like Biolab, also includes a centrifuge: in this way, while part of the samples are exposed to weighlessness, a 1G control group can be put in the centrifuge, which recreates the “weight”  conditions of Earth. In the afternoon Terry and I had a very interesting robotic simulator in which we practiced the interaction with Tsukuba mission control with an actual J-COM, the Japanese capcom. Tami, our J-COM today, could count on the help of a JEM flight controller (J-Flight) and a JEM robotic controller (KIBOTT). That was especially important when we ran into malfunctions that caused the arm to stop. In our simulation today we practiced the relocation of an external payload from one location to another on the Exposed Facility. In the picture you can see how a typical payload looks: it’s the element sticking out to the left and towards the solar array (although the array is really far behind). #SamLogbook   #Futura (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/

Training in Japan continues, in parallel to plenty of cultural experiences for Terry and myself. For example, yesterday our Japanese colleagues Soichi and Kimiya took us out during the lunch break to try the traditional savory pancake “okonomiyaki”. Very tasty! We’ve had more JEM training, in particular on the thermal control system and on some maintenance tasks. To practice one of those, the change-out of the HEPA filter in the ventilation ducts, we got to go to the clean room. This is one really unique feature in Tsukuba: classroom, JEM and airlock mockups, robotic simulator and even mission control and clean room are very close to each other! Today we got a refresher class on the JEM RMS, the robotic arm that is installed on the JEM Exposed Facility and is controlled by astronauts from the JEM. You can see it in the picture in a collaborative task with the SSRMS, which is the bigger Station robotic arm, also known as Canadarm2. We get a lot of training in flying the SSMRS. Since the JEM RMS is quite similar and its operational envelope limited to the Exposed Facility area, we don’t need a lot of extra training on it. But we do have to become familiar with all the specificities in nomenclature, procedures and control interfaces, as well as with the physical environment in which JEM RMS operates and with the camera views that are available to monitor movement and clearances to structure. Picture by Expedition 20 #SamLogbook   #Futura (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/

I’m in Japan this week for training at the Japanese Space and Exploration Agency (JAXA), in particular at the facilities located in Tsukuba, a university and science city not far from Tokyo. As you certainly know, JAXA is an important partner of the ISS program. In the picture you can see JAXA’s significant contribution to Station: the Japanese laboratory JEM, also known as Kibo, with the smaller stowage module JLP attached to it. JEM also has a magnificent balcony, the JEM Exposed Facility (JEF) and even its own robotic arm, the JEMRMS (JEM Robotic Manipulator System). Terry and I are here to complete our training flow on JEM systems and JEMRMS and to prepare as backups of Expedition 40/41, i.e. Alex and Reid. That includes training on their experiment complement, but does not include HTV training, since the Japanese cargo vehicle is not scheduled to be on ISS during their increment. Who knows, we might still get an HTV in our prime increment. In that case we’ll get the training next summer, when we’ll be back for a final Japanese trip. Today’s training day was mainly dedicated to a review of the JEM systems, which I badly needed, since I got my initial JEM training in August 2012. I also had some additional classes ECLSS tasks – that’s the Environmental Control and Life Support System. Some of those tasks might sound trivial, but it’s vital to perform them accurately if we want to have a good living environment on Station. One of the tasks that you really don’t want to mess up on orbit, for example, is measuring the velocity of air flowing through inlet/outlet grids in the ventilation system. We do that periodically with a dedicated air flow measurement tool. Why? Well, flight controllers on the ground have models of how that velocity field should look like. If the flow velocity becomes significantly smaller, there is a clogging issue in the ventilation ducts and it is necessary to… well… vacuum clean. Vacuum cleaning of the exposed grids is a weekly housekeeping task. But based on velocity measurements the ground might schedule a vacuum cleaning activity that requires you to open panels or tilt racks. Depending on the location affected, that can become a labor-intensive task, and certainly not a glamorous one. But that’s how we keep proper airflow in the ventilation ducts on Station. #SamLogbook  #Futura (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/

One of the good things about being an astronaut is that you can lie down on your back all day and call it training. Today I spent eight hours lying down in a Soyuz seat: first for a four-hour sim, then for manual docking and finally for manual descent. This latter we usually train in a regular seat, but this week the control panel is installed in the centrifuge for the exams of the next departing crew, just like it happened back on L-423. For our last simulator session on this training trip to Star City Anton, Terry and I flew a couple of times the rendezvous with ISS: one time based on the four-orbit quick rendezvous and one on the old two-day profile. The first crews that flew the new, fast scheme last year actually had to pass exams in both. Now the quick rendezvous has officially become the nominal mode, so we will have only one exam on ascent and rendezvous and we will play it just like on a real day: we will start out with the four-orbit profile and we’ll be ready to transition to the two-day backup plan if a malfunction forces us to do so. That could be an issue with the computer, with burns or with the determination of the state vector from the ground – or really any issue, big or small, that Moscow wants to have some time to work on before sending us on a trajectory towards Station. So, that wraps up this trip to Star City. Incredibly enough, next time I’ll be in Russia it will be for some final training and then the certification exams as the backup of Maksim, Reid and Alex. And after that I’ll go to Kazakhstan to see those guys launch – and to be ready for the extremely unlikely event that we have to launch in their place. I can’t believe it’s coming so soon. I’ll miss flying the Soyuz in the next six weeks, but I’ll have other interesting training keeping me busy in Tsukuba, Houston and Cologne. Next logbook from Japan on Monday! Photo credit: GCTC (Manual docking) #SamLogbook  #Futura (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/

Quite intense Soyuz sim this morning with Anton and Terry, dealing with a fire in the Soyuz descent module. Our scenario started just before undocking from ISS. First we performed, as usual, a leak check of the hatch, followed by a leak check of our Sokol suits. That’s what we were doing in the picture, by the way, as you can maybe tell by the inflated suits. If you missed it, you can read more about leak-checking the Sokols in this logbook entry. Just after we detached from Station, we started seeing smoke coming from the control panel. We immediately closed the helmets and turned off ventilation in the suits, to avoid circulating toxic combustion products. At the same time we opened the appropriate valve to supply oxygen to the suits from our oxygen tanks. We turned off all electric equipment, but of course in our simulation that didn’t kill the fire: we had to prepare to vent all our atmosphere to space. And rather quickly: with oxygen flowing into our suits and then out into the cabin via the regulator valve, the oxygen percentage increased quickly, getting close to that 40% that is considered a flammability hazard. When times are rushed like this, Anton and I work in parallel different procedures. In this case, I would work the depressurization of the cabin, while he would start Program 5 to get the Soyuz oriented and ready for the reentry burn. However, the day had another surprise for us: my control display failed. Having only one display left forced us to work procedures in sequence, instead of in parallel. Needless to say, we were rushed. Our infrared sensors also failed, which means that Anton had to orient the Soyuz manually and, having his hands busy, could not send any commands or change format on his display. That’s when I tried a little tool I had never used before: a small “remote control”, with which I could move the cursor on Anton’s display and send the “Enter” command. Not the fastest way, but it worked for us today! #SamLogbook  #Futura (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/

Some more manual flying of the Soyuz today and then a preparatory session for tomorrow’s Soyuz sim with the Sokol suit. On comments from last week’s posts, I have been asked how you don the Sokol. Indeed, when you see all zipped up, it’s not so obvious where the entry is! So, here it is: a step by step pictorial guide on how to put on your spacesuit! See the captions of each photograph for the corresponding explanations. #SamLogbook  #Futura (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/

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! #SamLogbook   #Futura (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/

Today Anton, Terry and I were back in the Soyuz simulator for a pretty dense training day. We started out with the approach profile to ISS and lost the Kurs system – the antennas that orient us to Station – just before the last burn on the main engine. If that happens, the compuer will still give you that burn based on the last good state vector it had from the Kurs. Basically, since it knows the position and velocity at the moment of the Kurs failure, it can propagate the state vector to the future and still calculate the burn. However, propagating the state vector without the possibility of correcting it with the antenna measurement leads to errors that accumulate as time passes. That’s why, after that final burn and within 3 km from ISS, the computer stops working the approach profile and we, as the crew, are on our own. No big deal, since we’re trained for manual approach and docking. As Anton was bringing us in manually, just a few minutes from contact, the computer also failed completely. Not that it mattered much at that point, so close to arrival, except that… just after docking we realized we had a leak in the Soyuz! we ended up rushing to undock again and then we had to organize an emergency descent fully manually: Program 5 dies with the computer! By the way, if you missed it, you can read about Program 5 in this previous logbook. A training session never ends when we leave the sim, of course. After a quick break, it’s debrief time, as you can see in the picture. Together with our instructor Dima we go over the events, especially any mistakes or actions that could have been done better or differently, so that we can try to perform better next time! #SamLogbook  #Futura (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/