As an avid Science fiction reader, the word robotics used to remind me of two things: Isaac Asimov’s literary universe (with the famous 3 laws that he created), or the wonderfully conceived duo of C3PO and R2D2, made famous by Star Wars (contrary to a common belief, not all astronauts are fans of Star Trek…). However, that word assumed a whole new meaning to me shortly after starting training as an astronaut, 2 years ago. My first encounter with the world of robotics has a name: B.O.R.I.S. This robotic arm only exists in the virtual world of computer based training, and all astronauts train initially on this simplified version of a real...
EVA training in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) is hard work, especially when you are very inexperienced (like me!) and you still need to learn how not to fight against the suit, how to optimize your movements, how make things easier for yourself. “If you’re working hard, you’re working too hard” is what veteran spacewalker Suni Williams likes to say. One of many great pieces of advice she gave me last Tuesday, when she found the time to get in the suit to coach me in my second EVA run. However… easier said than done. For my entire run I was at maximum cooling, with 75GPH of water flowing in my Liquid...
On March 5th I had my first suited EVA training event in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston. Here are some impressions from that special day. Days like today don’t happen often. Days when you experience something radically new. Days when unusual constraints force you to rethink your interaction with the environment, when your brain learns to give new meaning to sensory information, when your muscles acquire new patterns of movement to overcome previously unknown impediments. Days when you learn to be a cyborg. On such days even your eyes can betray you for a moment. As the crane lowers me into the water of NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab, it takes a...
“Good morning, Munich”, so begins each new day at the Columbus Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen, just outside of Munich, when the crew onboard ISS calls down for the morning daily planning conference (DPC). The call, which normally is received at 08:00 UTC (9:00 am local time in Germany) is literally an-out-of-this-world teleconference between the astronauts onboard ISS and the flight control teams in Houston, Huntsville, Moscow, Munich, and Tsukuba, Japan. The astronauts and the flight control teams around the world discuss any last minute changes to the activities scheduled for the day and clear up any questions that remain. The voice communication between the astronauts and the flight control team is the...
One of the most captivating images of spaceflight, at least to my mind, does not portray the staggering power released by a 3000 tonne rocket departing the Earth, nor the grace of a space station the size of a football pitch gliding over an ocean. For me, it is the image of an astronaut floating freely in space, surveying the Universe at will, unencumbered by Earth’s annoying (yet rather essential) gravity that epitomises human achievement. When I’m asked which astronaut has inspired me the most, the temptation is to recite the more obvious ‘first’ achievements of Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong or Alexey Leonov. The truth is the picture of Bruce McCandless conducting...
Strapped in my cramped seat in the small cockpit next to my commander, I scan the instruments looking for trouble. There’s nothing obvious, but there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll have a failure, probably more than one. We only undocked a few minutes ago, and already we had to use a reserve procedure because the automatic undocking sequence never started. So, as we wait for the spacecraft to reorient itself in space, I check every parameter and mentally compare it with the numbers I have memorized, knowing that I’ll find something, hopefully before it’s too late. I hear the commander talking to Ground Control, because one of the infrared systems...
On January 18th Thomas and I participated in a two-day survival training program that is mandatory for all Soyuz crewmembers and is meant to provide astronauts and cosmonauts the skills and confidence necessary to survive in cold weather. While the rescue teams typically arrive on the Soyuz landing site even before the capsule has made ground contact in case of a planned descent, an unplanned emergency reentry is a possibility at any time during autonomous flight or while docked at ISS. In the worst case scenario, even during initial ascent as a consequence of rocket failure. Here is my attempt at sharing with you our experience in the woods surrounding Star City....
Back in November 2010 ESA’s six latest astronaut candidates received their diploma’s. From that day on they were officially astronauts. The diploma received only covered Basic Training, there is still a lot more to learn. Basic training covered space engineering, electrical engineering, different scientific disciplines and the major systems of the International Space Station and other space vehicles. It included scuba diving to prepare for spacewalks, robotics, survival training, rendezvous and docking, and the Russian language. Since then the astronauts have had undergone survival training and caving missions. Follow this blog to read about the on-going training from the astronauts themselves: Samantha Cristoforetti from Italy, Alexander Gerst from Germany, Andreas Mogensen from...
