STS 101 EVA Report Jim Voss I recently returned from a visit to the International Space Station. It was a unique opportunity for me and my space station crewmates Susan Helms and Yury Usachev to see the place we will be living and working for 6 months next year. We will be the second crew to live and work on the ISS. We were assigned to the STS-101 flight only 2 _ months before launch to satisfy a need when the original crew was split into two parts. This was done to accommodate a change in the manifest that required one flight before and one flight after the launch of the Russian Service Module. So we joined our shuttle crewmates Jim Halsell, Scott Horowitz, Jeff Williams and Mary Ellen Weber on this repair and provisioning flight to the ISS. There is much to tell about our flight on Atlantis. The challenge of integrating into a crew that had trained together for 18 months before being split up. The challenge of preparing for a space flight in only 2 _ months. The challenge of convincing the training and operations communities that our skills learned over the last few years were sufficient to do the job. The four launch attempts are a story themselves with the accompanying frustration with the weather and launch constraints as well as the discomfort from lying suited on our backs for hours. The Russians launch in almost any weather so it was interesting trying to explain to my Russian crewmate, Yury, why we couldn't launch because of winds in Africa. But we did launch and then spent the first few days unpacking, checking equipment and rendezvousing with the Station. The rendezvous was spectacular with the station initially looking like a bright star, then a star with wings, then finally a space station, our future home, which grew larger and larger as we approached until it filled our windows only 3 feet away and we docked to it. Our first major activity after docking was a spacewalk. It was great! But it was great for different reasons than one might think. I did only 4 training exercises in the neutral buoyancy lab compared with the normal 10 runs in the water. Since the spacewalk was such a success, this small amount of training validates the argument for using skills based rather than task based training for Space Station. The second reason it was great was because the strongest feeling I had was that this was routine work, very different from the excitement that dominated my first EVA four years ago. Since we will be doing a lot of EVAs on the station, this type of work will need to be routine for us to be successful on our long mission. Jeff Williams, a fellow Army officer, was my EVA partner and we got everything done as scheduled plus a couple of extra things that were added while we were outside. This is a view of what to expect in the future as we will have a lot of unexpected work to do and we must be flexible and prepared to do anything that comes up. The view from outside was breathtaking as it always is, the Earth visible on such a huge scale that it is surreal. My hands got cold at one point in the EVA. While I was holding the Strella, the Russian crane that we assembled and moved, I could turn on my glove heaters but could not turn up the suit temperature because I needed both hands to lower the mini-work station to access the temperature controller. The glove heaters couldn't keep up with the heat loss from holding such large mass of cold metal. When I finally installed the crane in its new position I was happy to turn up the suit temperature and warm up. The exertion of the EVA was good for me - I was pleasantly tired, my normal space backache was gone and I slept better than any other night of the flight. I look forward to doing it again next year when we return. The next day was a significant one – we opened the hatches and ingressed the International Space Station. It was my first look at our future home, and I must say I wasn't too impressed at first. It was exciting to be there as we opened the hatches, but we were greeted with a funny smell – a pungent odor like that which comes from new plastic and which is in an enclosed place; and it was hot - the temperature in the Node was 34 degrees C. Luckily, after we installed new air ducting and got the air moving the smell went away and the temperature was lowered to a very comfortable level. Over the next few days we did a lot of work in the Station, including the replacement of batteries, electronic boxes, fans, smoke detectors, recording devices, and other equipment. We also transferred several tons of equipment for later use on the station. This ranged from clothing for the Expedition 1 crew to spare parts to water – hundreds of the different items needed for humans to live in space. After the initial odor dissipated, the air quality was excellent on Station as was the temperature (22 C), humidity (56%) and sound level (68 dB). Noise and it's effect on hearing loss has been a Space Station Program concern, but it is not a problem in the Node or FGB. We could carry on a conversation across a module in a normal voice and we had no need for hearing protection. I found the Node to be a particularly pleasant place to be. It is large – about 3-4 meters across depending on where you are and it has some indirect lighting that combined with the bright walls and salmon accent coloring is very pleasing. When I wanted to relax, I would go to the Node to float. On the other hand, the Node was not a good place to work because it had no velcro and one can't work in space without velcro – there is no place to put procedure books, tools, equipment or anything else you are working with. I added as much velcro to the walls as I could in the time available so it is a bit better than when we arrived but it will require more to make it a good place to work. This is one area in which the Russian's long duration space flight experience pays off - they know how to design a place to work in space. The module they built, the FGB, was a wonderful work site since the walls, floor and ceiling are carpeted with velcro so one always had a place to put tools. They also have straps on all the panels that allow securing things that have no velcro on them. We liked working there. This part of the flight was the best for preparing for our long duration flight next year. Technically, we trained by working on the actual equipment we will use – this was the best simulator in the world – the real thing. Mentally it helped me prepare by allowing me to see what the actual environment was like – the size, atmosphere, comfort, sound level and other living conditions. I wasn't sure before the flight if I would be able to live there for 6 months, but after seeing the conditions and living there a week, I now know that I can do it. Another benefit of going to Station was the motivation it provided my ISS crew. I have been training over 4 years and they for over three, so it provided us with a break from a grueling training and travel schedule and showed us that our management had a lot of confidence in our ability to get the job done with minimum preparation. One other thing I gained from working on Station was confirmation of something I already knew – the Expedition 2 crew will be able to live and work together in space for six months with no major problems. Yury, Susan and I worked well together and will be very compatible on our long flight; in fact there is a synergistic effect that overcomes any weaknesses we may have individually. Crew compatibility is one area that doesn't get much attention but which will play an important role in the success of long duration space missions. We worked hard, had some fun and landed with a good feeling of mission accomplishment – we have helped with assembly of the International Space Station and with preparing it for humans to live there. Importantly for the Expedition 2 crew, we learned what our future home will be like, and that we can successfully work there. |
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