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ISS Exp. 32 - Russian EVA-31 Updates
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Russian ISS Crew Members successfully complete challenging EVA |
August 20, 2012 |
Russian EVA - *File Image* Photo: NASA
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Russian International Space Station Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Yuri Malenchenko successfully completed Russian EVA-31 on Monday, August 20, 2012 - flying through their Spacewalk Timeline completing all, but one, tasks including get-ahead operations in just under six hours.
Ahead of the Spacewalk, it was known that this EVA had an extremely busy timeline in store for the two Cosmonauts. Luckily, both spacewalkers brought plenty of past EVA Experience with successful EVAs on the Mir Space Station and on ISS. This marked Gennady Padalka's ninth spacewalk and Yuri Malenchenko's fifth EVA. The focus of this Spacewalk was the relocation of the second Strela Cargo Boom of the Space Station. On a previous spacewalk, Strela-1 had already been moved from the Pirs Module which is currently being readied for undocking before the arrival of the Multipurpose Research Module in 2013 or 2014. Other tasks of the spacewalk included the deployment of a small satellite, the installation of debris shields on the Zarya Module, the retrieval of science experiments from the Station's exterior and the installation of support struts on the Pirs EVA Ladder. The last two items were get-ahead tasks. Starting the day's operations, Gennady Padalka and Yuri Malenchenko prepared their two Orlan Space Suits and ingressed them in preparation for their spacewalk. The Pirs Docking Compartment was used as Airlock today. The Progress Vehicle currently docked to Pirs was prepared for the EVA and emergency undocking by installing its docking mechanism, powering up the spacecraft and closing its hatch. As part of standard procedures, all ISS crew members that were not going outside had to be isolated in modules with access to their respective Soyuz Vehicles. Williams and Hoshide were isolated from the Zarya module forward to the US Segment while Revin and Acaba have been isolated in the MRM-2 Poisk with access to their Soyuz. This is done to allow the Service Module's Transfer Compartment to be isolated from the rest of the Station to serve as backup airlock. As part of nominal procedures, the crew closed the hatch from the SM PKhO (Transfer Compartment) to the Pirs Module for a leak check to confirm that the internal hatch of Pirs was in good condition. |
Afterwards, the IV Crew isolated the PKhO and a leak check is started to make sure the remaining three hatches to the PKhO provided a tight seal. During leak checks, a small leak was detected which required the Transfer Compartment to be repressurized. Aki Hoshide then re-opened and closed all hatches, egressed the PKhO and isolated it again before another round of leak checks began. Also, valves were checked to make sure all were in the correct configuration. This time, pressures were stable and the two Spacewalkers were given the GO for Pirs Depressurization, but the additional troubleshooting consumed much time so that teams were running behind schedule. The outer hatch of Pirs was opened at 15:37 UTC, marking the start of the Spacewalk - 57 minutes behind the timeline.
After egressing the airlock and completing initial set-up tasks, the two spacewalkers began the primary task of the EVA: moving the Strela-2 Cargo Boom from the Pirs Module to its new location at Zarya. Strela Relocations are tremendously difficult tasks because they involve handling large pieces of equipment around and maintaining clearances to avoid any damage to ISS hardware. The relocation task was expected to consume a major portion of the EVA timeline. During Russian EVA-30 in February 2012, Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and rookie spacewalker Anton Shkaplerov had a very hard time working with the booms that were moving around very easily – giving them no chance to secure themselves to complete the operation within the planned timeline. For this EVA, the spacewalking experience of Padalka and Malenchenko paid off as both had no trouble handling this difficult task.
After egressing the airlock and completing initial set-up tasks, the two spacewalkers began the primary task of the EVA: moving the Strela-2 Cargo Boom from the Pirs Module to its new location at Zarya. Strela Relocations are tremendously difficult tasks because they involve handling large pieces of equipment around and maintaining clearances to avoid any damage to ISS hardware. The relocation task was expected to consume a major portion of the EVA timeline. During Russian EVA-30 in February 2012, Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and rookie spacewalker Anton Shkaplerov had a very hard time working with the booms that were moving around very easily – giving them no chance to secure themselves to complete the operation within the planned timeline. For this EVA, the spacewalking experience of Padalka and Malenchenko paid off as both had no trouble handling this difficult task.
Photo: NASA
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Photo: NASA
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To set up for the transfer, Gennady Padalka controlled Strela-2 with Yuri Malenchenko riding the boom up to Poisk where he ingressed a foot restraint at the controls of Strela-1 - the other Strela Boom that was already moved. Padalka stowed Strela-2 and Strela-1 was extended towards Pirs. Once in position, Strela-2 was attached to the other Boom before being fully detached from Pirs. Malenchenko translated along Strela-1 to help Padalka with the operation. Once the Strelas were attached to one another, Malenchenko went back to Poisk where he started the complex maneuver of moving Strela-1 with Strela 2 and Gennady Padalka attached to it. Malenchenko used hand cranks to control the Cargo Boom to move the 100-kilogram Strela-2 with Gennady Padalka keeping it stable during the transfer. Radio Communications between the two spacewalkers were very busy as both of them monitored clearances to make sure the Cargo Boom is moved without making contact with other ISS structures. Both were in a constant exchange planning even the smallest movements to ensure everybody was on the same page. The transfer to Zarya was very efficient and Gennady Padalka secured Strela-2 in place to wait for Malenchenko who translated up on Strela-1 to join Padalka. Both then installed Strela-2 on a Flight Releasable Grapple Fixture with a Strela Adapter on. After the installation was complete, Strela-2 was stowed in the proper configuration for its stay on Zarya. Later, Malenchenko went back to Poisk and moved Strela-1 & Gennady Padalka back to Pirs. There, Gennady Padalka secured the End-Effector on Pirs to leave the boom in its extended configuration. This concluded the Strela task which was completed well ahead of the Spacewalk's timeline because the two Cosmonauts worked very efficiently, skipping scheduled breaks during orbital night passes.
With this major task out of the way and Padalka at Pirs, he had a chance to remove the CKK Payload from the exterior of the Module. The CKK 2 Experiment is a briefcase shaped container that houses a number of materials that have been exposed to the space environment for an extended period of time. Gennady Padalka was unable to retrieve the payload because it was stuck. Russian Mission Controllers assessed the problem and told the crew to stand down and move to the next task on the timeline which was the deployment of the small Sfera Satellite. |
Photo: NASA
Strela Relocation (File Image)
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This satellite, called TEKh-44 Sfera (Sphere) will be used by the Russians for Tracking Tests using Ground Tracking Stations and for the evaluation of orbital debris and orbital decay studies. The sphere is 53 centimeters in diameter and has a mass of about 13 Kilograms. The objective of the Sfera Mission is to update atmospheric parameters of Earth, specifically, the atmospheric density at orbits 100-400 km above the Earth. The satellite was deployed with a mechanism that was attached to it prior to the EVA. The Spacecraft was deployed in the aft-nadir direction away from ISS. The deployment was completed in daylight so that Mission Controllers were able to track the passive satellite with remote-controlled cameras to follow its trajectory. Sfera is expected to stay in orbit for three months before entering the atmosphere.
Photo: NASA
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Photo: NASA TV
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While Sfera was slowly floating away from ISS, the two crew members started with their next task which was the installation of five debris shields on the small diameter of the Zvezda Module. When retrieving the MMOD Shields from the Airlock, the two spacewalkers were about 40 minutes ahead of the timeline. The Micrometeoroid and Orbital Debris Shield Panels were installed nominally, without any issues. After all five panels, three smaller and two bigger MMOD Shields, had been installed, the two EV Crew Members were more than one hour ahead of the timeline.
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With so much time being left, Padalka and Malenchenko began work on get-ahead tasks. They successfully retrieved the Biorisk Exposure Payload. The Biorisk Experiment is looking at the effects of microbial bacteria and fungus on structural materials used in spacecraft construction. One special focus of the study is the influence of solar activity on the growth of microbes. The containers with the microbes inside were brought back inside the Pirs Airlock for later return to Earth. When Biorisk was retrieved, the two Cosmonauts had another try at the CKK 2 retrieval, but without luck. They were unable to close the two parts of the container holding the material samples. In its deployed configuration, the payload would not fit through the hatches it has to go through inside the Station for return to Earth. Also, the materials inside the briefcase can not be touched which is difficult with an open container floating in space.
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Photo: NASA
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The two spacewalkers considered breaking the payload into two pieces to take it inside, but Mission Control declined this option and decided to skip the CKK retrieval for good - putting it on the list of a future EVA after looking at the problem.
The final task of the Spacewalk was the installation of support struts on the Pirs EVA Ladder that is used to ingress/egress the module, attach tethers to it and temporarily stow tools on it. The support struts provide additional stability to the structure that will be moved to the Multipurpose Laboratory Module 'Nauka' once it arrives at ISS.
When this final task was complete, the EVA elapsed clock showed 5 hours and 4 minutes. The two Cosmonauts wanted the ground to give them more tasks to complete in order to stay outside for the full six hours, but Mission Control did not have any additional tasks and insisted on both spacewalkers closing-out, making a short tool inventory and getting back inside. The crew did as instructed and went back to the Airlock to ingress the Station and wrap up the EVA, but not without taking a few well-deserved minutes of rest to look at Earth and take some photos. The official end of this EVA came at 21:28 UTC.
Monday's EVA had a duration of 5 hours and 51 minutes. It was the 163rd EVA in support of Space Station Assembly and Maintenance. With this spacewalk complete, Gennady Padalka has now performed nine EVAs for a total of 33 hours and 6 minutes. Yuri Malenchenko now has five spacewalks under his belt for a total EVA time of 30 hours and 7 minutes.
This was the first of two planned Spacwalks during International Space Station Expedition 32. The next EVA will be under US Supervision and is going to be performed on August 30, by USOS Astronauts Suni Williams and Aki Hoshide. A dedicated US EVA-18 Update Site will be available on Spaceflight101.com later this week.
Photo Gallery: Russian EVA-31
The final task of the Spacewalk was the installation of support struts on the Pirs EVA Ladder that is used to ingress/egress the module, attach tethers to it and temporarily stow tools on it. The support struts provide additional stability to the structure that will be moved to the Multipurpose Laboratory Module 'Nauka' once it arrives at ISS.
When this final task was complete, the EVA elapsed clock showed 5 hours and 4 minutes. The two Cosmonauts wanted the ground to give them more tasks to complete in order to stay outside for the full six hours, but Mission Control did not have any additional tasks and insisted on both spacewalkers closing-out, making a short tool inventory and getting back inside. The crew did as instructed and went back to the Airlock to ingress the Station and wrap up the EVA, but not without taking a few well-deserved minutes of rest to look at Earth and take some photos. The official end of this EVA came at 21:28 UTC.
Monday's EVA had a duration of 5 hours and 51 minutes. It was the 163rd EVA in support of Space Station Assembly and Maintenance. With this spacewalk complete, Gennady Padalka has now performed nine EVAs for a total of 33 hours and 6 minutes. Yuri Malenchenko now has five spacewalks under his belt for a total EVA time of 30 hours and 7 minutes.
This was the first of two planned Spacwalks during International Space Station Expedition 32. The next EVA will be under US Supervision and is going to be performed on August 30, by USOS Astronauts Suni Williams and Aki Hoshide. A dedicated US EVA-18 Update Site will be available on Spaceflight101.com later this week.
Photo Gallery: Russian EVA-31
Russian Cosmonauts are gearing up for ISS Spacewalk |
August 14, 2012 |
EVA Preview
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The International Space Station Program is gearing up for two busy weeks featuring two Spacewalks - one under Russian supervision and a US EVA. First in line is the Russian EVA-31 that is planned on August 20 with preparations being in full swing aboard the Station and on the ground.
The Spacewalk will be performed by Gennady Padalka and Yuri Malenchenko wearing Orlan Space Suits. The two spacewalkers will exit the Station via the Pirs Airlock - egress is currently planned to occur around 14:40 UTC on Monday, August 20. The duo of spacewalkers is very experienced, both have already performed a number of EVAs on the Mir Space Station as well as ISS. Gennady Padalka is a veteran of eight previous EVAs - two on Mir and six on ISS for a total of 27 hours and 15 minutes of EVA time. Yuri Malenchenko has four EVAs under his belt - two on Mir and two in support of ISS Assembly and Maintenance for a total of 24 hours and 16 minutes. |
Credit: NASA
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To learn more about the spacewalkers, please refer to our biography sections, here for Padalka and here for Malenchenko. During the EVA, Gennady Padalka will be wearing an Orlan Suit with red stripes while Yuri Malenchenko can be identified by blue stripes on his suit.
The EVA has an extremely busy schedule and is planned to have a duration of six hours which is common for most Russian Spacewalks. During the EVA, the two Cosmonauts will be moving a Strela Cargo Boom, retrieve a materials science payload, install debris shield on the Service Module, deploy a small satellite and address a series of get-ahead tasks if time permits.
The EVA has an extremely busy schedule and is planned to have a duration of six hours which is common for most Russian Spacewalks. During the EVA, the two Cosmonauts will be moving a Strela Cargo Boom, retrieve a materials science payload, install debris shield on the Service Module, deploy a small satellite and address a series of get-ahead tasks if time permits.
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The first and longest task of the EVA will be the relocation of the Strela 2 Boom from the Pirs Module to the Zarya Module of ISS. Two Strela Cranes are installed on ISS, both need to be moved from DC-1 to other locations because the module will be undocked from ISS to make room for a new Russian Research Module next year. Strela 1 was already relocated during Russian EVA-30. Strela Cranes are used to maneuver large pieces of equipment during spacewalks. To relocate Strela 2, Strela 1 will be deployed and attached to Strela 2 before it is detached from the Module and moved over to Zarya for Strela 2 securing. For that, Gennady Padalka will be controlling Strela 2 while Yuri Malenchenko rides the boom that will take him to the other Strela on the Poisk module. Strela 2 will then be retracted and positioned for the move. Malenchenko deploys Strela 1 extending it towards Padalka who attaches the two booms. Malenchenko will translate to Strela 2 and assist Padalka with the detachment of the Strela 2 Boom. Strela 2 will be rotated once detached to place it in-line with Strela 1 to make the transfer easier. Malenchenko will go back to the Strela 1 foot-restraint on Poisk from where he will take Strela 1, Strela 2 and Gennady Padalka on a ride to the Zarya Module. After being moved to Zarya, Strela 1 is extended to place the other boom above its install location on Zarya and Malenchenko again leaves the operating position of Strela 1 to help Padalka install the Strela 2 Cargo Boom. Strela 2 will be installed on an adapter on Zarya and it will be pitched down to be stowed. Afterwards, Malenchenko goes back to Poisk and uses hand-cranks to move Strela 1 with Padalka on the other end back to Pirs. Strela 1 will remain extended between Poisk and Pirs to finish the task. The Strela relocation task has turned out to be quite difficult during the most recent EVA and could take up most of the time of the spacewalk depending on how quickly the two Cosmonauts can handle the two booms which requires an enormous amount of choreography to make sure all clearances are maintained.
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Credit: NASA
Credit: NASA
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When the Strela relocation is complete, Padalka will be at Pirs where he can retrieve the CKK 2 Experiment that is a briefcase shaped container that houses a number of materials that have been exposed to the space environment for an extended period of time. Gennady Padalka will close the case and place it inside the airlock. The materials science experiment will be returned to Earth for analysis. After stowing the hardware, Padalka will take the Satellite that will be deployed on this EVA outside.
Credit: NASA
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Credit: NASA
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Another prime task of the EVA is the release of a small, spherical, passive satellite. This satellite, called TEKh-44 Sfera (Sphere) will be used by the Russians for Tracking Tests using Ground Tracking Stations and for the evaluation of orbital debris and orbital decay studies. The sphere is 53 centimeters in diameter and has a mass of about 13 Kilograms. The objective of the Sfera Mission is to update atmospheric parameters of Earth, specifically, the atmospheric density at orbits 100-400 km above the Earth. The satellite is deployed with a mechanism that is attached to it prior to the EVA. Deployment is done in the aft-nadir direction away from ISS. Satellite deployments are preferred to be done in daylight so that cameras can track the satellite in order to make sure it moves away from ISS. Sfera is expected to stay in orbit for three months before entering the atmosphere. The final planned task for the duo will be the installation of five protective shields on the small diameter section of the Zvezda Module to protect it from MMOD (Micrometeoroid and Orbital Debris) puncturing the outer shell of Zvezda.
The Russian EVA also includes two get ahead tasks, the first of which is the retrieval of a biological experiment that was installed on ISS for an extended period of time and features a number of containers with samples inside. The Biorisk Experiment is looking at the effects of microbial bacteria and fungus on structural materials used in spacecraft construction. One special focus of the study is the influence of solar activity on the growth of microbes. The containers will be brought back inside for later return to Earth. One more get-ahead task for this EVA is the installation of struts on the Pirs EVA Ladder. These two struts on the EVA Ladder will provide stability. The Ladder will be moved to the Multipurpose Laboratory Module 'Nauka' once it arrives at ISS. |
Credit: NASA
Credit: NASA
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Once all tasks are complete or the EVA time is up, the two Spacewalkers will ingress the Airlock and call it a day. The next ISS Spacewalk will occur on August 30. US EVA-18 will be performed by Suni Williams and Aki Hoshide.
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