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It’s a federal holiday today here in the US, so no training. Happy Veterans’ Day, especially to those who have served! While I enjoy a pleasant sunny day in Texas- one of my last days at this latitude before flying to Europe on Friday – Luca and Karen are on their way to Houston after their safe landing last night. Reentering from orbit takes only a few hours, but the trip from Kazakhstan is quite a bit longer. They will arrive late tonight and will spend a few days in dedicated crew quarters at Johnson Space Center, before the flight surgeons will clear them to go home. Their schedules in the coming weeks will be busy with rehabilitation, collection of scientific data and debriefs. And of course with catching up with family and friends, who’ll likely have a lot questions! If you’re interesting in learning more about the Soyuz reentry and landing, I recommend this brand-new video produced by the European Astronaut Center. It’s a mix of real footage – including from inside the descent module – great 3D animations and interviews with veteran astronauts who’ve been on that roller coaster ride before. I think you’ll enjoy it! #SamLogbook (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

Boy, does time fly! It seems like yesterday that I was commenting live images of the launch of Soyuz TMA-09M from the Italian Space Agency headquarters in Rome and here we are: tonight Luca, Karen and Fyodor will return to the planet after having the ride of their lives as they reenter the atmosphere. I’m lucky that I’ll have the chance to follow the reentry and the landing from Mission Control Houston. How does a reentry happen? At 23:26:00 GMT the undock command will be sent. The system is very simple: within about 2.5 minutes the docking system hooks will open and the spring loaded pushers at the docking interface will give the Soyuz a small separation velocity of about 12 cm/sec. Once at a safe distance, after ca. 3 more minutes, the Soyuz attitude control thrusters will fire for about 15 seconds. We call that separation burn. Only after that will the guidance and navigation system of the Soyuz be turned on. First thing, it will spin the ship to find the Earth with its infrared sensors. Once the sensors capture the Earth’s infrared emissions, they will start feeding the attitude control system the information needed to orient the Soyuz along the local vertical, with the periscope towards Earth, so that the Commander can visually verify that the orientation is correct. The Soyuz will also be flying “backwards”, with the nozzle of the main engine facing in the direction of flight. That’s called “braking attitude”. The braking burn is scheduled for tonight at 1:55:33 GMT and will last about 4.5 minutes. Here are some pretty amazing numbers. The orbital velocity of the Station is somewhere between 7 and 8 km per second, or between 7000 to 8000 meters/second. The deorbit burn is “only”  128 meters/seconds. That’s all it takes to be hitting the ground less than an hour later! But before that module separation will have occurred at about 02:23 GMT: remember that only the central, bell-shaped descent module can survive atmospheric reentry intact! At about 10 km the active reentry guidance will terminate and the parachute will be opened. Expect that at about 02:35 GMT. It will then be about 15 minutes until impact, during which the heat shield will be ejected to expose the retrorockets and the seats will extend up to the “armed” position to give the shock absorbers the travel they need to work effectively. Even with the retrorockets firing, that you can see in the picture, it’s certainly not a soft landing! Enjoy the ride and be safe Luca, Karen and Fyodor. Looking forward to seeing you soon! Photo credit: NASA #SamLogbook (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

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. #SamLogbook (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

Today Terry, Anton and I had a 5-hour sim in which we practiced emergency responses: fire cases, depressurization scenarios and an instance of the dreaded ammonia leak. For this occasion I thought I’d reshare this older post from way before the Logbook time. And if you really want to know more about fire on ISS, you can also take a look at this blog post: https://blogs.esa.int/astronauts/2013/01/30/fire/ In a few minutes the three of us will be back in the mockups for  another type of emergency training. We call it Megacode and it’s a chance to practice our response in case of life-threatening medical conditions like a cardiac arrest. #SamLogbook (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

As mentioned in yesterday’s logbook, Terry and I spent the day in the airlock mockup to rehearse pre- and post-EVA procedures. The most important topic of the day was the pre-breath protocol. Before depressing the airlock to vacuum and opening the hatch to go on a spacewalk, we need to pre-breath pure oxygen to purge nitrogen from our bloodstream and prevent decompression sickness symptoms while out on an EVA. Yes, it’s the same problem that divers might have when they resurface: going from a higher pressure to a lower one. The suit, in fact, is only pressurized to about a third of atmospheric pressure: otherwise it would be too rigid and it would be impossible to do complex work in it. There are different pre-breath protocols. The one that is commonly used now is the In-Suit Light Exercise. After breathing pure-oxygen through a mask for about an hour while performing initial preparatory work, EVA crewmembers don the suits, purge them for a few minutes to get a pure oxygen atmosphere inside and then do little movements with arms and legs for about 50 minutes. That increases the metabolic rate slightly and speeds up the nitrogen purging. One of the goals of yesterday’s Prep & Post class was for Terry and me to understand how intense (or actually little intense) that in-suit exercise has to be to hit the target metabolic rate. Medical personnel gave us feedback real-time based on our CO2 production so that we could adjust the intensity of the work and, hopefully, develop some memory for the ideal level of exertion that is required.   #SamLogbook (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

Really full day at the airlock mockup. It’s a Prep & Post day for me and Terry: a spacewalk day, minus the actual spacewalk. If you missed it, take a look at the L-470 Logbook for more info about a Prep & Post class. That time I was the IV crewmember, meaning that I was the “inside” support person. Today, Terry and I will actually be in the suit. We had some briefs and practice this morning about preparing the airlock and the suits and in a few minutes, after a very early lunch break, we’ll get into our thermal cooling undergarments to start the suiting up and pre-breath protocols. #SamLogbook (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

After some “cultural training” last night organized by crewmate Terry, who took Anton and me to the Houston Texans football game and was patient enough to explain the rules to us, the training week has started full speed this morning with a pretty long sim in which we practiced recovery from a major power failure: one of those nasty situations in which you loose com with mission control and, as a crew, you need to dig into long and convoluted procedures to bring the Station to a safe configuration. Later in the day, on to some preparation work with Peggy for our EVA training run on Friday and then a review of habitation aspects on Station. That includes obvious things like crew quarters, housekeeping tasks, food, … but also some fun little details, like all the different devices that we can use to position and secure things on orbit. Most of the racks on Station have so called C-tracks seat tracks: in the picture you can see two such tracks running top to bottom next to each other in the ISS mockup. And you can also see some of the devices that we can secure at any point on a C-track seat track and can in turn be used to mount and orient laptops, foot restraints, cameras, extra lights and more. Little tricks about living on humanity’s outpost in space. #SamLogbook (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

You might have wondered if crewmembers have something to eat or drink during spacewalks, that can easily last 7-8 hours. I have heard that some kind of food bars were available in the suit in the past, but experience has shown that they were more a nuisance than a help. In terms of energy, it’s easier to rely on a big breakfast. There is a water bag in the suit, though. We also use it in the pool for our 6-hours runs. It’s a disposable rubber bladder that contains up to 32 oz (almost 1 liter) of simple water. When we arrive on the pool deck in the morning after the brief, the first thing we do is to insert that bladder into a reusable restraint bag and to orient the blue bit valve the way we like to have inside the helmet. We then secure the bag inside the suit with velcro, making sure that the bite valve is at the proper height for easy reach. Just like the water bags commonly used by bikers and hikers, you need bite on the valve to open the orifice and draw water from the bag. Once you release it, the orifice closes to prevent more water from flowing out. Photo credit: NASA/Stafford #SamLogbook (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

This last week I spent quite a bit of time at the Neutral Buoyancy Facility. The picture I’m sharing is from last week’s suited run with crew-mate Scott Kelly. As you can see in the photo, as soon as we are lowered into the water at the beginning of a training day, the safety divers take charge of us. Before we start our six hours of hard work, it’s time for their show! First they give a shake to the suit to get rid of the air bubbles that might be trapped in the folds of the external garment. After that, any remaining stream of air bubbles would indicate a leak of the suit, so this is a good time for a final check. After a go from the suit engineer who’s watching from the pool deck, the divers take us to the bottom of the pool to do our initial weigh-out. The purpose of the weigh-out is to make sure we’re neutrally buoyant in the water. In the first place, of course, that we don’t have a tendency to rise or fall. And then there is rotation. While we run our communication checks and we listen to the safety briefs, the divers spin us around in all directions to detect any tendencies of the suit to rotate along its axis. To neutralize those tendencies, they can insert small blocs of weights or foam of different densities into dedicated pouches located around the legs, on the backpack and on the chest area. It’s an art, rather than a science. And adjustments are needed throughout the run to compensate for changes in configuration, water depth at in which we are working and the tendency of the suit to expand after several hours in the water. Credit: NASA/Stafford #SamLogbook (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

I’ve spent the day so far at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory to prepare a training run in the pool I’ll have next Friday with veteran spacewalker Peggy Whitson. First we had the so-called 1G class, where we were introduced to the hardware and the procedures. And then I had a chance to dive in the pool to take a look at worksites and translation paths. We will replace two components: the S-Band antenna (SASA) and one the four Control Moment Gyroscopes (CMG). The CMGs are pretty massive: in the picture you can see astronaut Dave Williams holding one during a STS-118 spacewalk, when a failed ISS CMG was replaced. Photo credit: NASA #SamLogbook (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