Outposts on the Frontier: A Fifty-Year History of Space Stations (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight)

by Jay Chladek

  Shuttle EXPRESS

  Atlantis paid the station its next visit on 18 November 2009 during STS-129. In the cargo bay were two EXPRESS logistics carrier assemblies. The EXPRESS (Expedite the Processing of Experiments to Space Station) racks were part of Brazil’s contribution to ISS construction in partnership with NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center. These racks would act as a system of outside storage where experiments and equipment could be plugged in via attachment fixtures. The experiments could then be integrated with the station’s power and data lines while operating independently of one another. There are EXPRESS racks on the inside of the station as well. Equipment and experiments can be added or removed as needed, so items can be mounted to the racks either on a temporary or on a semipermanent basis. To help accommodate these racks and other exterior items, the ISS is equipped with a common attach system along various points on its structure. The common attach system acts as a combination of a data interface and a power plug, similar to USB ports for smartphones and computers.

  STS-129 continued the process of stowing spare equipment on the outside of the ISS, as Atlantis carried up two nitrogen tank assemblies, an ammonia tank assembly, two pump modules, a part for the truss’s mobile transporter, and a spare end effector (or grapple fixture) for the SSRMS. Two experiment racks were also installed, containing materials and coatings being considered for future spacecraft designs. This equipment was installed on three EVAs. Another item carried up was a UHF communications unit and command panel for the SpaceX Dragon cargo vehicle. The system would allow ISS crewmembers to monitor an approaching Dragon craft and abort the approach if a problem developed. The Dragon was not designed to hard dock with the station. Instead, a Dragon would approach close enough for the SSRMS to grapple and berth it on a CBM, like Japan’s HTV craft.

  At the conclusion of STS-129, Nicole Stott returned home with the shuttle crew. She became the last ISS crewmember to fly on the shuttle. For all future ISS crewmembers, a smooth return home gliding on the wings of the shuttle was a thing of the past. For a growing group of NASA astronauts, their only trip to and from space would be in a capsule.

  Rocket Ride

  One member of the growing American fraternity to only fly in a capsule was astronaut Timothy “T. J.” Creamer. When Creamer joined the astronaut corps in 1998 after working in a support capacity at NASA for three years, little did he suspect that it would be eleven years before he took his first trip into space and that it wouldn’t be on a shuttle. Born to a military family, Creamer was a highly experienced helicopter pilot and colonel in the U.S. Army, in addition to having a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Loyola College. Creamer also has a very healthy sense of humor and likes to joke that helicopters really are high-performance aircraft, since unlike most jets (except for the Harrier jump jet), they can hover and fly backward. Time logged in high-performance aircraft was a requirement for shuttle pilots.

  Even though his fellow Penguin classmates from the 1998 class got to fly in space ahead of him due to their assignments and the delays brought by Columbia’s loss, Creamer took it all in stride and did his assignments with no complaints. Finally, he was assigned as a flight engineer for ISS Expeditions 22 and 23. He would fly aboard Soyuz TMA-17 with Expedition 23 commander Oleg Kotov and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi.

  Unlike KSC and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which are located close to the surrounding communities of Central Florida, Baikonur is very remote. The only people who live there on a semipermanent basis are the engineers and technicians directly supporting launch activities, plus members of the military. Most Roscosmos officials and cosmonauts typically don’t arrive until launch preparations begin. This is especially true during the very cold winter months, such as when TMA-17 was scheduled to lift off.

  As with shuttle crews, Soyuz crews spend about a week or two in quarantine, keeping contact with outsiders to a minimum to prevent exposure to germs that they might then otherwise carry into orbit. The last night before a launch, they spend time staying in crew quarters on-site. On the morning of the launch, before heading off to the prelaunch festivities, new crewmembers sign the doors of the crew quarters rooms they stayed in, while veterans add mission listings to their previous signatures.

  After a final medical checkup, the crewmembers don their Sokol pressure suits. The outer cover of the Sokol contains the internal pressure bladder, which would just expand like a balloon until it pops otherwise. To seal the internal bladder, the opening in the front waist area is brought together at a part known as the appendix on the suit’s abdominal region. There, a technician simply double knots a rubber band around the appendix to seal the bladder. The seal is very simple, but it is also very effective.

  The outer suit is next zipped up, and the crewmembers enter a conference room divided by a glass wall to see family, friends, and members of the press one final time for prelaunch good wishes. In this room, one at a time, each suited crewmember sits in a seat liner as they would on a Soyuz and hook up their air lines so that a technician can check the integrity of their pressure suit. It is all done in full view of people and cameras on the other side of the glass as a final reassurance to the invited guests that crew safety is the first priority.

  Once the checks are complete and the crew say their goodbyes, their suits are each hooked up to portable air conditioner boxes to keep their body temperatures comfortable on the trip to the pad. The crew then head outside and meet with members of the launch commission. The Soyuz commander steps forward to present his crew and salutes while declaring that they have finished preparations and are ready to fly. Once the launch commission gives its approval, the crew board a bus and head out to the launchpad.

  Along the way, the bus stops about two hundred yards short of the pad, and the crew get out to perform a ritual that tradition says began with Yuri Gagarin himself: they urinate on one of the bus’s tires. As T. J. Creamer explains, this is a very important step: “You are about to go into a position where your legs are above your chest . . . in an elevated position for three hours with no relief tube to urinate into. Simple body fluid dynamics means you don’t want to go up there with a full bladder.” To do this tradition, each crewmember has to unzip the suit, undo the appendix, urinate, and then suit back up with a technician’s help. Supposedly, women crewmembers relieve themselves before boarding the bus, yet it is also said that they carry a small bottle of their urine, which they open and dump on the tire to honor the tradition. With this final call of nature complete, the crew reboards the bus and finishes the journey to the pad.

  At the pad, the crew climbs up the gantry to an elevator that takes them to the top. Here, they are accompanied by a couple of technicians who, according to Creamer, are built well enough to play on professional American football teams. They are there to make sure that none of the Soyuz crewmembers falls, as the gantry was originally designed when the R-7 rocket was just an ICBM. The gantry wasn’t intended to handle three crewmembers wearing bulky pressure suits. According to Creamer, “You become a very sensitive item at this point because you can’t be replaced quickly enough.” At the entrance to the elevator, one of the technicians gives each of the Soyuz crew a “good luck” kick in the rear with his knee as part of the tradition. Creamer described the kick with a smile on his face: “I wouldn’t even say it was a short knee. He kicked a forty-yard field goal.”

  As the crew climb up and give one final wave to the crowd, they board the elevator, which Creamer says was really only designed for two people. But three travelers in pressure suits are pressed into it along with one technician for the ride to the top. It takes a bit of repositioning for everyone to fit in so that the door closes cleanly.

  At the top of the gantry, the crew arrive at the Soyuz. One of the side covers on the launch shroud is removed, exposing the spherical Soyuz orbital module, where two technicians are preparing things. Entry to the Soyuz is through a side door on the orbital module, which in the early days of the program was also the egress hat
ch for EVAs. The purpose of at least one of the technicians is to help strap each crewmember in. Two crewmembers each climb inside and down into the descent module, where they stand on the center seat before shimmying over to their assigned seats and strapping in. A launch technician is there to help as much as possible during this difficult task. According to Creamer, this technician really earns his pay and does his job very well. Once two of the crewmembers are strapped in, the technician climbs out and the commander climbs in. Then the technician hangs upside down through the descent module’s hatch and does the same job for the commander, strapping him into the center couch.

  When everything looks good, the hatch to the descent module is closed and the side door on the orbital module is sealed up. The launch shroud is added next, and so begins the three-hour wait with periodic equipment checks. There isn’t much space in the descent module, which has been described as everything from a bathtub with three guys crammed into it to the front seat of a Volkswagen Beetle after climbing in through the sunroof.

  The spacecraft commander has a wand that he can use to press buttons on the Soyuz computer, but prelaunch procedure also involves turning a couple of valves in the Soyuz. It turned out that Creamer’s arms were long enough to reach both valves even though they were in front of Oleg Kotov. So when the time came to turn them, Kotov gave one look at Creamer that said, “Please?” Among the cosmonaut ranks, Kotov is a very cordial individual. T. J. Creamer said, concerning his feelings toward his commander, “When I finally grow up, I want to be just like Oleg.” The camaraderie among the TMA-17 crew and, indeed, among the five members of the Expedition 22–23 crew on orbit was excellent and even surpassed the good camaraderie of the military units Colonel Creamer had served with in the army: “The five of us together was just an amazing and wonderful time.”

  Before heading out to the pad, each crewmember takes an over-the-counter pain pill to help with the discomfort, but after two hours of lying on your back in a fetal position with an hour left before liftoff, one might begin to feel like it is a form of mild torture. The quickest way to get relief is to launch, since a scrub might mean more time waiting in the capsule before technicians can get the crewmembers out. But compared to the shuttles, Soyuz craft have very rarely ever had launch scrubs.

  Finally, liftoff comes, and the acceleration is smooth and constant, almost like an airliner taking off, but for a longer period. Peak acceleration load on a Soyuz ascent is typically about 3.5 g’s. Cameras inside the Soyuz transmit images of the crew during ascent. Most Soyuz commanders typically have a talisman tethered to the control panel to act as a microgravity indicator. So when the engines stop as the Soyuz reaches orbit, the tether line goes slack, indicating zero gravity. The talisman is a mascot of sorts for the Soyuz commander. In Oleg’s case, it was a toy black cat. For the crew, it is relief at last as the prelaunch discomfort subsides in zero-g freefall.

  After an hour of work to prepare the Soyuz for orbital flight, the crew can remove their Sokol suits and put on their flight coveralls. The commander takes his suit off first since it is easier for him to move around in the orbital module, but the other two crewmembers get out of their suits soon after. The total internal volume of the Soyuz craft is about as large as a 1960s Volkswagen bus. For sleeping, two of the crew use their ISS sleeping bags in the orbital module, while the commander sleeps in the descent module so that he can handle communications with the ground as needed.

  Two days later, the Soyuz rendezvouses and docks with the ISS. This is done over the Russian ground stations as the Russians typically don’t use NASA’s TDRS network. There are two windows on the Soyuz, plus the commander’s periscope, and Creamer was treated to an awesome sight when he first saw the ISS on a fly-around inspection pass: “It was at a wonderful lighting time, and the colors [of the station] were outstanding. It pretty much burned into my mental memory [as] stunningly beautiful in terms of visual coloring and majesty in size.” A reasonable comparison might be that seeing the ISS in person would be several times better than the best IMAX film image of it. In person, one can more easily comprehend the size and the complexity of a station that to that point Creamer had only seen in pictures, computer simulations, and video footage.

  After the crew docks and the hatches are opened, the newcomers enter the ISS into the arms of their colleagues. When TMA-17 arrived, it was a couple of days before Christmas, so Kotov and Noguchi entered the ISS with Santa Claus hats, while Creamer entered wearing a pair of green curly toed elf slippers. They brought a bag of “gifts” in the form of fresh food for their crewmates. Typically, a press conference with officials in Moscow and family members takes place before the combined crews get to work. Then it becomes business as usual, starting with a “tip to toe” safety briefing by the resident crew to bring the new people up to speed.

  Life aboard the ISS

  During his time in orbit, Creamer conducted the usual experiments and station maintenance in addition to his other tasks. Tasks are blocked out by the ground on a daily basis for what to do, but they are not necessarily scheduled in a strict fashion. The lessons learned during the Skylab and Mir programs have finally been taken to heart by NASA controllers.

  Each crewmember has assigned tasks, and they might involve taking data from science experiments, monitoring equipment racks, or taking samples from surfaces, water, and air to check for pathogens. Periodically, a piece of equipment, such as a water recycler, might also need to have its flow redirected. Mission control can operate many of the systems on the ISS remotely with a simple mouse click, but some tasks require a crewmember on orbit to flip a switch and monitor the event if a problem develops.

  For newcomers on the station, there is a ramp-up period where they get up to speed in how best to do things and figure out for themselves the best method for scheduling individual tasks. Since Kotov’s crew arrived around Christmas, they had the benefit of additional days off to help with their transition. The new crew was well prepared when the big stuff started, as things would soon get very busy by ISS standards.

  With the regular interaction of all the crewmembers, everyone was on hand to help out one another if somebody was falling behind. All the crewmembers were trying to stay ahead of the mission timeline, as they wanted to keep free time available for unscheduled activities, such as taking pictures of Earth and having coffee breaks with crewmates. The interaction between crewmembers was very good for crew morale, and having a fresh set of eyes while looking at an experiment procedure might enable one to interpret what is being asked in the procedure and to explain it in common terms if the other person isn’t entirely clear about it after looking at the instructions.

  T. J. Creamer had a chance to perform maintenance above and beyond the call of duty when the Advanced Biological Research System (ABRS) science rack in the Destiny laboratory malfunctioned. The rack contained several individual compartments with their own self-contained environments to grow various samples of plant microbes. The rack was the responsibility of the science group at KSC.

  When the science rack began malfunctioning, the fault was traced to a set of fuses inside it. The rack wasn’t designed to be serviced in orbit, but thanks to some excellent preparations on the ground by a team at KSC and project leader David Cox, they came up with a way to troubleshoot the problem, locate the fuses, and replace them with new ones. It was T. J. Creamer’s responsibility to take those procedures for what was essentially depot-level maintenance and modify them for microgravity. According to Creamer, Cox’s team conveyed just how much precision was needed for the task, to the point that he felt sort of like an explosives technician trying to defuse a bomb who has been told, “Don’t cut the red wire!” Creamer got the rack up and running again in quick fashion, and the KSC team was given an award by NASA for their excellent work. The KSC scientists and engineers credit much of the success of the ABRS to Creamer and his orbital repair work.

  A Room with a View

  During T. J. Creamer’s time on orbit, the
ISS hosted three shuttle missions. STS-130 arrived first, with Endeavour carrying the Tranquility node with the cupola attached to one of its CBMs. The cupola is a large segmented window. It has one central window and six windows spread around it in a hexagonal pattern. It sort of resembles a turret station on a World War II bomber but without the gun. From the cupola, astronauts could look down on the world as well as at the ISS almost from end to end. When not in use, external covers are folded over to protect the windows from micrometeoroid debris. Rather than just being a place for astronauts to enjoy the view, the cupola also is equipped with a control station for the SSRMS and Dextre.

  The Tranquility node was berthed on the port-side CBM of Unity directly opposite the Quest airlock. The cupola occupies Tranquility’s nadir port. To help protect the outermost CBM of Tranquility from micrometeoroid debris, PMA-3 was docked to the end of it for storage. PMA-3 acts as a hardware backup in case PMA-2 on the front of Harmony is damaged, and the pair can be switched as needed. After berthing by the arm and three EVAs, the new node was opened for business, and it became a popular place for crewmembers to hang out in during their break times.