NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy examines a spacesuit during Expedition 36 in August 2013. Credit: NASA
Astronauts on the International Space Station “could have ignited flammable materials” on station while drying out a spacesuit that experienced a major leak during a spacewalk in July 2013, a new report reveals.
NASA Mission Control directed the Expedition 36 crew to use a vacuum cleaner to suction out the water, a procedure that inadvertently sucked up oxygen from the suit’s secondary high pressure oxygen tank, says a mishap report into the spacesuit leak incident. This “potentially hazardous risk” of electricity and pure oxygen created a fire hazard, the report added.
In a phone call with reporters yesterday (Feb. 27), report chair Chris Hansen added that the “levels of oxygen were perfectly safe” in this particular incident and that the “the risk to the crew in the end was none”, but said the incident still warranted attention in the 222-page report, which mainly deals with the spacesuit leak.
The incident occurred on July 17, 2013, one day after a “life-threatening” amount of water leaked into a spacesuit helmet used by Luca Parmitano, the report said. The astronauts and NASA were doing looking for the source of the leak. Astronauts reported no damage to the water bag and no water in the suit (which had been cleaned up after the spacewalk).
Parts of a NASA spacesuit used on board the International Space Station, as cited in a February 2014 report about a spacesuit leak the previous July. Credit: NASA
Next, they turned on the fan to the portable life support system (or backpack) with a secondary oxygen pack (SOP) check-out fixture. The fixture covered a vent port and oxygen switch for about 14 minutes. All appeared to be running normally, with no water detected. When the crew then removed the fixture (following procedure), they heard a “sucking” noise and the fan ceased moving, the report said.
“The crew was directed to turn off the suit fan and move the O2 Actuator to OFF. The crew then turned the suit fan back ON and again set the O2 Actuator to [the] IV [setting]. The fan briefly began spinning and then shut down almost immediately, with the crew reporting a water “sucking” or “gurgling” sound,” the report added.
The crew found “a few drops” of water in a canister outlet and “about a spoonful” of water in the suit inlet ports, as well as a few drops of water in a neck vent port. As the ground decided what to do, an infrared carbon-dioxide transducer in the suit “began to show an increase in its reading and eventually went off-scale high, most likely due to moisture in the vent loop near the CO2 [carbon dioxide] transducer,” the report stated.
Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano during a spacesuit fit check before his mission. Credit: NASA
With water in the suit, Mission Control then asked the crew to remove the water with a vacuum (one that is designed for wet or dry cleanup) as soon as the astronauts had the chance. Everything was normal until after the station emerged from a routine loss of signal, at which point controllers saw the secondary oxygen pack was turned on and reading 500 pounds per square inch lower than before the loss of communication.
“They quickly realized that their procedure had resulted in the EMU releasing 100% oxygen from the SOP into the vent loop, which was then sucked into the vacuum cleaner. This was a potentially dangerous situation involving unintended consequences,” the report said.
ISS Astronauts had to scramble to get Luca Parmitano out of his spacesuit after water leaked inside the suit, covering his face. Via NASA TV.
“During interviews, system experts indicated that they should have been able to anticipate SOP activation due to the reduced pressure created by the vacuum cleaner. The procedure was immediately stopped. No fire occurred and the crew was not harmed.”
In interviews after the incident, individuals spoke of “perceived pressure” to do the dry-out procedure quickly instead of first testing it on the ground with similar hardware. They instead used a non-functional spacesuit before directing the crew to do the procedure.
There were at least three factors contributing to that pressure, the report added: the desire to avoid corrosion in the suit, limited crew time, and the impending loss of signal.
The report did not identify any “additional causes, findings, or observations” from this event, noting that it is not technically an anomaly and was not classified as such in the NASA literature.
Luca Parmitano during a a spacewalk on July 16, 2013. An hour into the spacewalk, he reported water in his helmet and NASA cut the spacewalk short. Credit: NASA
While NASA’s Mission Control “performed admirably” during a spacewalk water leak crisis in July, a report on the incident showed that controllers did not send astronaut Luca Parmitano back to the airlock until after he made three calls saying the water didn’t appear to be from a drinking bag.
There are several reasons this happened, the mishap report says, such as inadequate training, the crew members and ground misunderstanding the severity of the situation, and a (false) perception that any water leak is likely due to a problem with the drinking bag.
Another big problem was the “normalization of deviance”, similar language to what was used during in reports describing the Challenger and Columbia incidents. In this case, small amounts of water in the helmet was expected, and controllers also misunderstood the cause of a carbon dioxide alarm (a fairly regular occurrence during spacewalks).
The report pulls no punches when it describes how bad things were: “The presence of this water created a condition that was life threatening.”
While talking about what is in the report, it’s also important to point out what the investigators did not find. There was no evidence that contractors were afraid to bring up problems (such as what happened during the 1986 Challenger explosion), chair Chris Hanson told reporters yesterday. Also, while the suits are 35 years old, no aging problem was detected.
Another couple of cautions: the report is preliminary (the exact cause of the leak is under investigation), it’s lengthy (222 pages) and much of the technical information is unavailable to the public due to export control restrictions. Any news story will just scratch the surface of what happened and the recommendations to fix it.
That said, here are a few key points we found in the report.
European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano on a spacewalk July 9, 2013 during Expedition 36. Here, Parmitano is riding the end of the robotic Canadarm2. Credit: NASA
Parmitano warned controllers multiple times. The transcript shows three separate calls from Parmitano saying it wasn’t the drinking bag at cause: (1) “I feel a lot of water on the back of my head, but I don’t think it is from my bag.” (2) “The leak is not from the water bag and it is increasing.” (3) “I’m thinking that it might not be the water bag.” (In between 1 and 2, he also sent another call saying his “only guess” was it was the drinking bag, but the report adds that Parmitano may have softened his stance after speaking to controllers). Misunderstanding about the severity, lack of training, “cognitive overload” of controllers, and space-to-ground-to-space communication difficulties are all cited as contributing factors.
Drink bags don’t actually leak as much as people think they did. Unequivocally, the mishap investigation board says “the perception that drink bags leak, especially as a frequent occurrence, is false.” There has never been an instance of a bag leaking substantially during a spacewalk, the report says. After the crisis passed and investigators had the luxury of time, they in fact identified seven separate possible sources of water: (1) the bag; (2) the waste collection garment; (3) cooling water from the sublimator heat rejection component of the suit; (4) the Liquid Cooling Ventilation Garment connector or the tubing itself; (5) transfer lines through the Hard Upper Torso; (6) water storage tankage through the pressurizing bladders; (7) the water separator circuit (which is where the problem was eventually found).
It was a risky decision to send Parmitano back alone. Twenty-three minutes after Parmitano warned of water in his helmet, NASA terminated the spacewalk and as per procedure, had the astronaut head to the airlock while crewmate Chris Cassidy performed cleanup tasks before doing the same. (“Terminate” has a specific meaning as opposed to “abort”, which means both crew members leave immediately.) By this time, water was in Parmitano’s eyes and the station had passed into the shadow of the Earth, forcing him to feel his way back to the airlock along the tether. (This was only his second spacewalk on station, too.) Also, the water affected his communications equipment, as he made several calls “in the blind” that were not heard. At this time, Cassidy and the ground controllers did not know how severe the situation was. “Additional risk exposure that the team could have considered was the aspiration of water, failure of comm equipment, and impaired visibility,” the report said.
European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano does spacesuit maintenance prior to July 9 and 16, 2013 spacewalks. Parmitano was a member of Expeditions 36 and 37. Credit: NASA
The emphasis on science on station can hinder with maintenance tasks. NASA and other space station partners are eager to demonstrate how great the station is to science, but crew time is divided between that and doing maintenance tasks. “Due to this knowledge, team members felt that requesting on-orbit time for anything non-science related was likely to be denied and therefore tended to assume their next course of action could not include on-orbit time,” the report states. To give a specific example of how this affected Parmitano’s suit: After water was found in the suit during a previous spacewalk, the crew and ground essentially determined it was due to the drink bag and did not probe further, partly because of the perception that doing an investigation would take an inordinate amount of time for little return (as they believed they knew the cause). On a related note, there was also the concern that investigating this occurrence (which happened on July 9) would delay the July 16 spacewalk. (Again, this sounds a bit like Challenger, where time pressure was cited as a reason to launch despite icy conditions.)
More needs to be done to understand the physics of water in a spacesuit. A few examples: it was believed the fan would have failed if water got through the separator unit, which did not occur. It was also believed that any water in the helmet would cling to the helmet, and not the crew member’s face. Not only that, the training for crew and ground was inadequate to seek out water causes on the fly. “Had this been done, the crew and ground team may not have attributed water in the helmet to just the drink bag,” the report stated.
Water in the helmet was normalized. If you’ve read Chris Hadfield’s An Astronaut’s Guide to Life On Earth, there’s an account in there about how Hadfield (who also was a junior spacewalker in 2001) became temporarily blind due to an anti-fog agent on the helmet getting into his eyes. This has happened during other spacewalks, too, which meant that the ground team was used to small amounts of water in the helmet — even though this wasn’t a normal condition. Another aspect: a carbon dioxide alarm went off in Parmitano’s suit after it became saturated with water. This happened six minutes before he felt the dampness. The team attributed this to “nominal accumulation of moisture in the vent loop,” which can happen at the end of the spacewalk. Having it happen less than an hour in, however, did not trigger a fault-finding process.
Water collecting inside of a spacesuit helmet. This was the lead image in a report investigating a July 2013 water leak in a spacesuit used by European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano. Credit: NASA
While there are many, many causes in the report (with aspects ranging from the technical to the procedural to the training), members identified three main ones to the incident: (1) inorganic materials in the water separator drum holes, for reasons still unknown (2) a lack of understanding that meant the team’s response took longer than usual (3) a misdiagnosis of the water found during the July 9, 2013 spacewalk.
There are 49 separate recommendations ranging from “Level 1” priority to “Level 3”, which are still important but less urgent. NASA has pledged it will clear all “Level 1” and “Level 2” items before doing any normal spacewalks, although contingency ones are still possible. They expect this to be finished by June, but say they will take as long as needed to get the investigation done. There are no pressing spacewalk tasks on station right now.
Looking to the long run, the report noted that there should be more backups available if a fault is found in the spacesuits, as NASA is relying on these devices to perform essential station maintenance as far as 2028. Also, the investigators say that the six-year certification of these suits for orbital tasks is likely inadequate, and calls for a review of that. So although aging was not identified as an issue, maintenance and backups of the spacesuits could be key features of NASA thinking in the months and years to come.
Self-portrait of Expedition 36/37 European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano during a July 2013 spacewalk. Credit: NASA
It took NASA almost the same amount of time as a sitcom episode to send Luca Parmitano back to the airlock when the Italian astronaut experienced a leak in his spacesuit last summer, a new report reveals.
The 23-minute gap of time between when Parmitano first sent a report of water in his helmet, to when NASA told him to go back to safety, exposed the astronaut “to an increased level of risk”, the report said. While Parmitano emerged from the incident safely, in his last minutes inside the spacesuit the water was covering his eyes, getting close to his nose and mouth, and affecting the communications equipment.
“There wasn’t an issue of anything being hidden or surprised. It was a lack of understanding about the severity of the event. It was believed a drink bag caused the leak,” said Chris Hansen, the chair of the mishap investigation board, in a press conference today (Feb. 26).
This misunderstanding, added Hansen (who is also the chief engineer of the International Space Station Program) also led to a problem when a leak occurred in the same suit just the week before.
Parmitano’s water leak occurred July 16 when he and Chris Cassidy were preparing a part of the International Space Station for a new Russian module. Until today, however, few knew about the existence of a second leak in the same spacesuit that happened on July 9, when Cassidy and Parmitano were doing another spacewalk together.
Astronaut Chris Cassidy works with Luca Parmitano’s spacesuit, which had a water leak on July 16, 2013. Credit: NASA
After the conclusion of “EVA 22” on July 9, as NASA called the extra-vehicular activity, Parmitano took off his helmet and crew members discovered between 0.5 and 1 liters (0.13 to 0.26 gallons) of water inside. Cassidy told the ground that he could not see any water during the spacewalk or repressurization, leading NASA to conclude the water got into the helmet in the airlock.
“Also,” the report noted, “[Parmitano] was looking down and leaning forward and likely had pressed on the drink bag with his chest and could have pinched the bite valve open with his chin, releasing water into his helmet. The ground team accepted the crew’s drink bag leak assessment and the presence of excessive water in the helmet was not investigated further … The ground team instructed the crew to use a new drink bag for the upcoming EVA 23, which they did.”
Hanson emphasized that the crew did not make the final call, and that the ground team did ask some questions about what was going on, but the assumption that a drink bag caused the water was also a key feature of the July 16 spacewalk when the leak began to show itself in earnest.
ISS Astronauts had to scramble to get Luca Parmitano out of his spacesuit after water leaked inside the suit, covering his face. Via NASA TV.
Also, NASA did not well understand the physics of how water worked inside of the suit, assuming there was no way for liquid to make it past a fan pump separator into the helmet unless the fan itself shut off. If that scenario arose, NASA would have kicked into a 30-minute return-to-airlock procedure, and that was in the back of controllers’ minds as they were working through the fault tree during the July 16 spacewalk, officials said in the phone call today.
In the short term, the authors of the report have several “Level 1” or priority recommendations that they should be implemented before normal spacewalks resume. NASA said it’s planning to work through these and “Level 2” recommendations in time for June, with the aim of getting spacewalks going again in July or August.
NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins holds a spare ammonia pump module during a spacewalk Dec. 24, 2013. Hopkins and fellow Expedition 38 Rick Mastracchio (top) performed two spacewalks to replace a pump blamed for crippling one of the International Space Station’s two cooling loops Dec. 11. Credit: NASA TV (screenshot)
Emergency spacewalks can still go forward, as the agency has new safety measures in place (including snorkels). This happened in December as the astronauts replaced a faulty ammonia pump.
The agency has no pressing spacewalk tasks at this time. The broken pump, sitting in temporary stowage outside the station, was initially safed to stay there until summer, but further analysis shows that it could sit there for several months more.
You can read the entire 222-page report here. We’ll pull out more highlights tomorrow after we have some time to look over it in more detail, too. The exact cause of the leak is still under investigation.
NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg created this mini-quilt based on a drawing her son, Jack, created. Picture posted in December 2013. Credit: Karen Nyberg/Pinterest
Kids’ drawings are the best, as astronaut Karen Nyberg proudly shows in her latest mini-quilt piece. The astronaut — who just spent six months in orbit during Expedition 36/37 — is also a prolific quilter and drew inspiration from her son, three-year-old Jack, in this quilt posted on Pinterest. The drawing shows how quickly Jack changed during her mission, she wrote.
“When I left for space station in May, my son was drawing only lines, circles, and squiggles. When I returned in November, he was drawing people. He told me this picture is ‘Jack playing in the grass on a sunny day.’ ”
We’re guessing Nyberg is having an easier time quilting now that she isn’t working in microgravity anymore. The video below explains the challenges she had doing quilting in orbit and making sure that sharp pins didn’t just float away and cause problems on station.
Nyberg is married to astronaut Doug Hurley (who piloted the final shuttle mission, among other things) and as the Houston Chronicle’s Eric Berger points out in November, the parents have lots of experience helping each other out with child care during training and missions.
Expedition 36/37's Luca Parmitano, a European Space Agency astronaut, moments after landing Nov. 10, 2013. Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi
The big news around astronaut circles these days is the assignment of Takuya Onishi — from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency — to Expedition 48/49 around June 2016. Onishi is from the class of 2009, and we’re guessing he’d be sure to poll his classmates on how their mission training is going.
Well, another of the 2009 astronaut class — Luca Parmitano — just returned from six months in space. It was an eventful mission, with Parmitano facing down a scary water leak during a spacewalk, using the Canadarm to berth and let go of a cargo spacecraft, and then delighting the Internet with enthusiastic fist pumps just minutes after he landed.
Parmitano speaks about the science on station (up to 150 experiments at one time!) as well as what he was experiencing during the leak:
“We were starting our third task, and I felt some water on the back of my head,” he said in an undated video from orbit included in the new video. “And I realized it was cold water. It was not a normal feeling. So I called ground, and that point we called to terminate the EVA.”
But he made it back safely, and looks more than ready to take on another mission in this picture. The cause of the leak is still under investigation, and NASA is holding off on more spacewalks with American suits until they figure out what happened.
Expedition 37's Fyodor Yurchikhin (Roscosmos), Karen Nyberg (NASA) and Luca Parmitano (European Space Agency) as their Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft safely descends to Earth on Nov. 10, 2013. Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi
“It’s only in the moment that you’re in your spacesuit, and that the hatches are closing, that you know that four hours later, you will be back on Earth.”
That’s European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne talking about the emotions an astronaut or cosmonaut feels as they leave the International Space Station in a Soyuz spacecraft. The new ESA video, posted above, shows just how hard the astronauts and ground teams have to work to make sure the spacecraft gets to the right spot.
From training, to calculating orbital trajectories, to making sure the landing site in Kazakhstan is free of debris, it’s easy to see how easily those landing teams get up to dozens and dozens of people.
The undocking itself can be complex; depending on which port the Soyuz is attached to, the International Space Station itself may have to change its position to make sure the spacecraft is in the right orientation to head back to Earth.
After navigating the hazards of space, sometimes the landing site can be treacherous as well. In Kazakhstan, the mounds of snow can build up in the area in the winter time; crews need to be prepared to retrieve the spacefarers in just about any weather condition.
NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg quilting during her Expedition 35/36 mission in 2013. Credit: Karen Nyberg (Pinterest)
From guitar playing to quilting, it’s clear that the astronauts aboard the International Space Station have excellence in other interests besides their core jobs. NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, shortly finishing up her nearly half-year mission in space as part of Expedition 35/36, is an accomplished crafter. She’s found time to make a dinosaur from spare scraps and severalheadbandsto keep her long hairfrom flying in her face. And now she wants you to join with her work.
Despite her skill in crafting, however, Nyberg says working in microgravity is quite the challenge. She keeps all her supplies in a ziploc so they don’t go flying in all directions when she’s not using them. A pile felt board keeps everything secured while she is working on a piece.
But measuring and cutting when you can’t lay something down means working takes a long, long time. That’s what makes this single nine-inch-by-nine-inch quilting block below so precious.
NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg holds a quilt patch that she made in space during Expedition 36/37 in 2013. Nyberg is inviting quilters to submit star-themed patches of their own for a quilt to display at the International Quilt Festival in Houston in 2014. Credit: NASA (YouTube/screenshot)
Nyberg says her work is “far from being a masterpiece”, but is inviting other quilters to share the metaphorical stage with her creation. Quilters anywhere in the world can make star pieces of their own and send it to the International Quilting Festival organizers for display in fall 2014. If all goes well, Nyberg expects to make an appearance to view the creation herself.
Here’s a short summary of the requirements (which you can read officially on this page):
– Have a star theme;
– 9.5 inches (24 centimeters) square;
– One block per person, signed on the front with a permanent marker marking name and location;
– Mail by Aug. 1, 2014 to “Star Block Challenge, Attn: Rhianna Griffin, 7660 Woodway Ste. 550, Houston, TX 77063.”
By the way, the full video of Nyberg explaining her sewing challenges makes you sympathize with how hard microgravity can be. Although the backflip she does at the end likely makes up for at least some of it, right?
NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Karen Nyberg (edge of picture, at left) examine a faulty spacesuit aboard the International Space Station during Expedition 37 in October 2013. In July 2013, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano had to abort a spacewalk after a water leak arose while wearing the spacesuit. The cause is still under investigation. Credit: NASA/YouTube (screenshot)
Here’s the latest attempt to hunt down the water leak that aborted Luca Parmitano’s spacewalk in July: two astronauts aboard the International Space Station removed and replaced a fan pump and water separator inside the spacesuit earlier this week.
All spacewalks with NASA suits are on hold while the agency investigates the leak, and they have been trying mightily. In late July, then on-station NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy demonstrated how the pool of water spread within the helmet (as you can see in these YouTube videos).
This week, on-orbit NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Karen Nyberg delved further. While the astronauts are trained before their missions on some suit repairs, this particular type was not something that was covered before they left Earth. After Mission Control walked them through what to do, the astronauts proceeded cautiously as they did the work, NASA said.
“Our engineering teams have identified several different components of the suit, designing a big fault tree, and this is just one of the components that we think could have contributed to the leak in the suit,” said Alex Kanelakos, an extra-vehicular activity flight controller and astronaut instructor, in a new YouTube video.
“Specifically, the water separator is what we’re concentrating our efforts on today.”
As Kanelakos explained, a motor inside the suit drives the fan pump and water separator. The fan circulates oxygen, and the pump pumps the coolant fluid. The water separator, meanwhile, takes out moisture (water) from the ventilation loop and gas that could be trapped inside the water coolant loop. The dried-out air is then returned to the crew member for breathing, and the cycle continues.
Astronaut Chris Cassidy works with Luca Parmitano’s spacesuit, which had a water leak on July 16, 2013. Credit: NASA
In September, Cassidy told Universe Today that the spacesuit is expected to come back to Earth during a future SpaceX Dragon cargo flight. That type of spacecraft is (unusually among space trucks) designed to survive re-entry in the atmosphere, allowing engineers on the ground to examine the spacesuit after it comes back.
Cassidy added that the situation was serious, and he supported NASA’s decision to end the spacewalk (which he was also participating in.) He didn’t think, however, that Parmitano was in immediate danger of drowning. For his part, Parmitano wrote a blog post on the European Space Agency website after his spacewalk, saying that space is an “inhospitable” arena.
Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano during a spacesuit fit check before his mission. Credit: NASA
As any astronaut is trained to do, Parmitano did consider other contingencies while the leak was happening, he wrote:
“The only idea I can think of is to open the safety valve by my left ear: if I create controlled depressurisation, I should manage to let out some of the water, at least until it freezes through sublimation, which would stop the flow. But making a ‘hole’ in my spacesuit really would be a last resort,” he wrote.
That fix, however, was not implemented as Parmitano and Cassidy made their way back to the station in time for their crewmates to repressurize the hatch and bring their Italian crewmate safely inside.
"The pic doesn't do the northern lights justice. Covered the whole sky. Truly amazing!" wrote NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins on Twitter Oct. 9.
Isn’t that aurora facing the wrong way? Not if you’re in space!
NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins tweeted this picture from his perch on the International Space Station a few days ago. He sounds jazzed to be on his first mission: “Can’t believe this is really me from the Cupola and that I’ve been in space for almost 3 weeks now!” he wrote on Twitter Oct. 15.
We’d be pretty excited, too! Luca Parmitano (from the European Space Agency) is also on his first trip into space. In between their manyexperiments, the rookies must relish the opportunity to take pictures of the view. Which image of theirs below is your favorite? Did we miss any notable shots? Let us know in the comments.
“Blue liquid silk folds and unfolds in the #Caribbean.” European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, Oct. 16, 2013. (Twitter)“Not something you see every day first hand. With features like this, Dubai stands out from 260 miles up.” NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, Oct. 14, 2013. (Twitter)“The sculpted mountains of the Iranian deserts.” European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, Oct. 15, 2013. (Twitter)“What remains of Hurricane Phailin after it reached land.” European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, Oct. 13, 2013. (Twitter)
And of course, they’re grinning like crazy up there.
“Impossible not to smile with such a view!” European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, Oct. 16, 2013. (Twitter)“Can’t believe this is really me from the Cupola and that I’ve been in space for almost 3 weeks now!” NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, Oct. 15, 2013. (Twitter)
Abigail Harrison just prior to the launch of her mentor astronaut, Luca Parmitano, in Kazakhstan May 28, 2013. Credit: Abigail Harrison
Meet Abigail Harrison. This teenager’s enthusiasm about space so impressed Luca Parmitano — who just happens to be a European Space Agency astronaut on the space station right now — that the two have a social media collaboration going.
Abby collects questions from readers of her blog (AstronautAbby.com) and sends them up to the station for Parmitano to read and respond to.
Parmitano’s first mission in space, which he calls Volare (“Fly”), has been a busy one. He’s driven a rover, practiced grappling techniques for the Cygnus spacecraft — which was delayed in its docking to Tuesday (now Saturday) — and experienced two spacewalks (one went to plan, and the other was cut short due to a spacesuit leak).
Meanwhile, Abby had a space-y summer of her own. She fundraised thousands of dollars to see Parmitano’s launch in May. Then she went to Space Camp and toured several NASA and international agency centers. We caught up with Abby to find out how things are going — and if this brings her any closer to her dream of going to space herself. Below is a slightly edited e-mail conversation about her adventures.
Universe Today: How’s it going with the partnership?
Abigail Harrison: Working with Luca has been a lot of fun! I have really enjoyed being able to e-mail with him on station and especially the opportunity I had to talk to him while visiting Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL at the end of July. The AstronautAbby community has been very active sharing images of the Space Station flying by for my #CatchLuca weekly blog post, and the #AskLuca questions submitted by my community have been great. It’s fun to hear how Luca answers these questions each week.
UT: What are the best things that you have been doing specifically to spread the message of Volare?
AH: I think my #CatchLuca blog series has been a real hit! So many people from around the world have taken photos of the ISS passing overhead and decided to submit them and share with the world. It’s been great! I think this helps to spread the message as it is people on Earth getting excited about the space station and sharing their own pictures. The more sharing that happens, the more aware people get about the mission and the more they learn.
Luca Parmitano, a European Space Agency astronaut, is on his first voyage to space as a part of Expeditions 36/37. Credit: NASA
The #AskLuca series has also been very successful. It’s true, anyone can jump on social media and ask a question of Luca or any astronaut and they most likely will answer it, but this series has allowed people who may not be socially savvy to ask questions, as well as people to ask longer questions. The fact that all the answers are published on my blog is also great as people can read it in a published article versus on a social media update.
UT: Tell us more about these NASA tours you’ve been doing lately. What is your goal in doing them?
AH: I have been fortunate to be in the right places at the right time. This summer I was in Houston for a gymnastics camp, and therefore I was able to tour the Johnson Space Center – but not just tour the center, I got to see the Neutral Buoyancy Lab and compare it to the Russian counterpart that I saw in May during my visit to Star City [astronaut training complex in Russia] when attending Luca’s launch. I also was able to go on the floor of Mission Control and see a specialized robotics lab, along with a lot of other cool things.
Abigail Harrison simulates repairing a satellite during Space Camp in Huntsville, AL. Credit: Abigail Harrison
After Houston, I headed to Huntsville for Space Camp. While in Huntsville I was able to tour the Marshall Space Flight Center and specifically see some of the work NASA is doing along with ATK to build the Space Launch System, which is the rocket system that will take me to Mars someday (similar but much bigger than the Saturn V rockets that took Apollo to the moon).
Finally, I visited Lockheed Martin’s facilities in Colorado to see the production of the Orion, which is the spacecraft currently being developed to go to Mars, the moon and asteroids. These visits have tremendous value as I have been able to share pictures, write about the visits and talk about what I have seen with people everywhere.
The goal is to learn about what is being done right now to realize the future American missions to Mars, the moon and asteroids and continue human space flight. The more I learn and understand about our current efforts to realize the future of human space exploration, the easier it is for me to talk about the future and educate the general public. Part of my mission is to help spread the word to people around the world about the future of human space flight and get the public excited for what we will do next.
Abigail Harrison with subscale test rocket motors during a visit to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. Credit: Abigail Harrison
UT: I’m sure you’ve been talking to Luca regularly. What do you talk about?
AH: We e-mail and tweet quite a bit. We have only talked once. To be honest, I follow his mission very closely through his online updates and ESA and NASA updates for my role as his Earth Liaison, and therefore I am up to date on what he is doing, probably more up to date than most people.
When we e-mail and talk it is usually about other things like advice on school, travel (he lives in Houston so gave me some good tips on what to see while visiting), and generally asking him how he is doing and what it is like to live and work on the ISS. It’s not that different from when he was training for his mission on Earth, except for now he is flying in space overhead and his e-mails and tweets come from space. 🙂
UT: Do you feel any closer to being in space as a result of this partnership?
AH: Yes, I do. How could I not? I would guess that anyone who personally knows an astronaut living on the ISS would feel closer to being in space. The personal connection means you are paying close attention to everything the astronaut is doing, and following the mission very closely.
The fact that I am sharing so much of what Luca is doing as part of my role as his Earth Liaison also helps me feel closer to being in space, because I am sharing with so many people and they in turn offer me support everyday towards my goals. I watch Luca and can imagine the day when it’s my turn to go into space. It’s been an incredible experience to get to be part of his mission.
