28 Sep 2012 – Friday

Editor’s note: Part 2 of today’s mission diary update from deputy ATV team manager Charlotte Beskow at ATC-CC Toulouse.

It is noon and the control room is empty!

Everyone has disappeared to grab some rest before operations get underway this evening. Well, not everyone of course, a few flight controllers are in the main control room, watching over ATV-3.

The last few days have been off the charts! Let’s do a quick recap…

Monday 24th: Egress in the evening

Tuesday 25th: First undocking attempt – It failed just minutes before ATV hooks were suposed to be opened.

Although the root cause is located fairly quickly the schedule is so tightly choreographed that there is no room to restart, therefore the departure had to be cancelled.

The teams spent the rest of that night bringing ATV and ISS back to the ‘attached’ configuration. Half the team left at 5 AM the others at 10 AM the following morning. When I fell into bed at 10:30, the Sun was up and people were already having their mid-morning coffee!

Wednesday 26th: A flurry of communication on all levels took place between ESA/NASA and RSCE [Energia – Ed.].

Due to station constraints, we could not undock until the night between Friday and Saturday. Due to various other legal restrictions we could not perform reentry (undocking is only the first part – ATV must safely be brought back to Earth over a well-defined, empty area of the South Pacific) by 2 October, with 6 days required for maritime traffic notification.  

In addition, NASA trajectory experts were tracking a piece of space debris that potentially could hit the ISS. This meant that we had a possible debris avoidance manoeuvre (DAM) to contend with.

During the evening we were informed by our Engineering Support Team (EST) lead that the DAM had been confirmed and that certain members of the EST needed to be in place Thursday morning at 10:00 local time. Undocking would could not be planned before Friday night.

Thursday 27th: When I check my phone upon waking up I see that the DAM has been cancelled. This brings back the possibility to depart the ISS the same evening. We want to leave ASAP precisely to reduce the risk of having to do a DAM. An SMS from the EST Lead tells us to get some rest… I decide to go in anyway.

I get there in time for the briefing which appropriately starts with a music clip: Clash with “Should I stay or should I go…” We all get a (much needed!) good laugh. A few phone calls later the picture has cleared; NASA and RSCE agree that ATV leaves tomorrow [Friday, 28 Sep] night.

EST members are notified via SMS that they need to be at ATV CC at 16:00 for a briefing.

We have our work cut out; the presence of the team (30 people) has to be replanned with hotels, personal constraints, completely revised planning and budget restrictions to be taken into account…

To add to the general enjoyment, two members are retiring and simply have to go before the ATV-3 mission is over. We need to respect legal conditions on working hours, shift length, rest between shifts AND area of expertise.

We make a plan that, on paper, satisfies the requirements; reality is different since a few people will be on call during the entire period 24h/24h.

To add to our general difficulties we (the EST) have no offices here at ATV Control Centre, so we have 35 people milling around, trying to find a place to work, being ejected from one meeting room after another due to various high-priority meetings.

What strikes me, as always, is how well the EST cope – very well. No one is unduly upset; everyone is very tolerant…

Friday the 28th: I go to ATV-CC to collect and distribute the main mission data of the past few days (and to write this little text).

As stated above, all is quiet and, so far, green for tonight’s undocking!

Here is the timing (GMT) of the major events:

  • ISS hooks opening: 17:07 – 17:17
  • WAKE_UP_2: 21:19:32
  • DEMERGING: 21:37:32
  • ISS Free drift
  • ATV Hooks opening: 21:43:12
  • ATV Undocking: 21:46:22 ca.

If the sky is clear you can see the ISS cross the sky on
29/9    06:01 -> 06:04
1/10    06:47 -> 06:52
2/10    06:00 -> 06:04

Times are local times

Details on exactly where to look can be found on www.heavens-above.com [or via https://www.n2yo.com/passes/?s=25544 for ISS and https://www.n2yo.com/passes/?s=38096 for ATV – Ed.]

Reentry will take place during the night between Oct 2 and 3 (Tue and Wed).

I’m heading out into the fresh air for some exercise (and rest if possible) before I come back here this evening for the night shift.

That’s it from me for now!

— Charlotte