Credits: Laura Winterling

Everyone is getting ready for the undocking tonight – including the astronauts on the ISS. This update was sent in by ESA’s undocking expert Laura Winterling. 

Flight Engineers 4 and 6 (Aki Hoshide and Yuri Malenchenko) conducted the last ATV3-related On Board Training (OBT) on Monday morning, 11:15 CEST.

The training lasted for 45 minutes including a briefing and debriefing session with ATV undocking expert Laura Winterling from Mission Control Center – Moscow (MCC-M). During the On Board Training, the crew reviewed the steps necessary for today’s ATV-3 undocking including actions to take in case of off-nominal situations.

ATV OBTs are conducted in MCC-M with the help of the Glavnj Operator guiding the space-to-ground conversation and a planning team from Russia and Europe. Tonight’s ATV undocking will reach its climax when Yuri and Aki see Edoardo Amaldi off to fulfil its last mission objective.

For this operation, ESA’s ATV crew instructors Liliana Ravagnolo and Laura Winterling will be on console in ATV-CC and MCC-M, respectively, to support the ground-control teams by keeping track of crew performance and for any operations-related consultation.