EVA #22 Training Exercise

In July there will be two EVAs (Extra-vehicular activity) where the astronauts will go out outside the International Space Station (ISS) to preform a number of maintenance tasks on the Station.  I am scheduled to work the first of the two EVAs, EVA # 22.   Two astronauts Commander Chris Cassidy of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), an US Navy SEAL, and Major Luca Parmitano of ESA (European Space Agency), an Italian Air Force Test Pilot will perform the EVA.  Major Parmitano is going to be the first Italian to perform a spacewalk or EVA.

Commander Chris Cassidy                            Major Luca Parmitano

EVAs are a very complex task, first the crew has to re-size the on-board spacesuits so they can fit somewhat comfortably in the spacesuits. While on the ground they plan the EVA down to every handhold that the spacewalking crew members will use.  This is a planned EVA so before these astronauts where even in space they wer training in the NBL (Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory), a giant people at Johnson Space Center that is 40 feet deep, 100 feet wide and 200 ft long.  It is used to simulate the weightless environment of space, and it has a mockup of the exterior of the space station in it.

Even an astronaut that does not go outside the station still has to help out with the EVA.  Dr. Karen Nyberg of NASA gets to be involved.  She helps the two EVA crew members get in and out of their suits and she gets to control the giant robotic arm of the space station to assist in the EVA.

Dr. Karen Nyberg

The Flight Control Team (FCT) also undergoes  lots of training on the ground.  One of these training exercises is a full dress rehearsal of the EVA with the FCT that is on console during that EVA.  The FCT including both shifts that will be on-console are in the SIM, that means that there is a handover in the middle of the SIM, which is very rare in the SIM world.   

NBL at JSC

The FCT runs through all the procedures and look for issues to fine tune their calls to the crew to make sure things will run smoothly on the ground side.  Even in the dress rehearsal the training team still throws in a number of things that go wrong, but nothing that will stop the EVA early to make it run like on a real day.  At the end the FCT team undergoes a in-depth debrief to talk about what each flight control position did well and what they did not do well.

All this training will prepare the FCT to respond to any problems that will arise during EVA # 22.