Columbus Control Centre. Credits: G. Zoeschinger, Col-CC

Volare mission director Roland Luettgens keeps us updated on ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano’s mission to the International Space Station from mission control at the Columbus Control Centre. Luca will be onboard to welcome ESA’s ATV-4:

Luca left for Baikonur to start his period in quarantine, it is the next step towards launch. Time is running out fast, and at the Columbus Control Centre we need to get back to normal operations for Luca’s launch of Soyuz 35S on 28 May.

The spacewalk and follow-up activities due to the ammonia leakage on the International Space Station has kept us busy around the clock. Doing an unplanned spacewalk, on such short notice requires all teams on ground as well as the astronauts in space to work under great pressure to get everything ready. Onboard systems need to be reconfigured to support the spacewalk, all plans have to change and extra teams are pulled in to support the people working on mission console. They are all doing a good job !!

After the departure of astronauts Chris Hadfield, Roman Romaneko and Tom Marshburn on the Soyuz spacecraft 33S last Monday we are back to operating the International Space Station with only three crewmembers. This means we can get less done until the next crew arrives. The next crewmembers are essential to conduct some activities we urgently need to do.

ATV-4 getting ready for launch. Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Video du CSG

Once Luca arrives in space, he will go through a so-called adaptation period during which we cannot plan many activities until he gets acclimatised. One week later we start planning more and more tasks for him, until he has a full working day Monday to Friday. We can only plan up to 6.5 hours of his time every day and his planning is already full.

Two weeks later, on 15 June, ESA’s ATV-4 spacecraft will arrive carrying more than six tonnes of cargo of which 200 kg are for ESA. One item is an experiment called FASES which Luca needs to install right after the arrival of ATV in order to get the science started.
ATV-4 is being loaded with its final cargo. When Luca is ready to fly, ATV will be fully loaded and waiting to launch on the 5 June.

…11 days left to launch, and counting….