NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Q: There are hundreds of thousands of pilots and scientists out there in the world, but there are fewer than 50 cosmonauts. What was it that made you try to become a cosmonaut and be one of those people who fly in space?

Image to right: Cosmonaut Oleg V. Kotov, flight engineer representing Russia's Federal Space Agency. Image credit: NASA

A: This is the question that I ask myself from time to time, and I cannot give you a hundred percent answer to this question. A childhood dream? Yes, of course. There are probably hardly any boys of my generation who didn’t want to be a cosmonaut. Yes, it was a dream, but then time passes and you arrive at the realization that there are dreams and there is the reality, and it’s time to choose a profession based on some rational and pragmatic decisions. But the dream remains. The dream does shape our subconscious and directs our thoughts and steps and actions in this specific direction. When I was graduating from high school I liked medical science. I was dreaming of entering medical school, medical academy. When I started going to the medical school the question arose of what my specialization would be, and I wanted to become a specialist in space medicine. When I had to make the choice of where to go to work after I graduated from the academy, probably my subconscious spoke, or my childhood dream got involved -- I chose to go to the cosmonaut training center, Star City. I started working as a physiologist, a medical doctor studying the problems of the human body adjustment to zero-gravity conditions, particularly during the EVA when the crew members are working outside. It was very interesting, and at a certain point in time when I had the opportunity to turn in my application and go through the medical exam and apply to the cosmonaut corps, I did take that chance. It’s a major step because that would suspend my medical career and I would become a professional cosmonaut, but I did do that. I think the combination of dream motivation and the combination ... well, I’ll say working hard with this motivation in mind, and luck -- that brought me, brought me among those people who, who are going to fly into space.

Well, the “flying into space” part of your job, we know, can be very dangerous. What is it that you believe that we get from flying people into space that makes it worth the risk you’re taking to do it yourself?

Yes, of course, the risk does exist, but this is a known risk that all explorers are facing. Test pilots, those who test equipment on the ground, it’s part of the job. It’s not a reckless desire to sacrifice yourself for exploration, for the sake of something or other. It is a conscious attitude because I believe that what I’m going to do is going to benefit people. Maybe, that’s a big maybe, it’s a big statement, but for me it’s important to be one of the explorers who are working on space exploration.

You are flight engineer on Expedition 15 to the International Space Station. Oleg, give me a summary of your goals on the flight and what your main responsibilities are going to be.

OK. I’m very excited to be part of the Expedition 15 crew, and I’m mostly excited because we’re supposed to perform a lot of tasks during our flight, and most of them will be done first time after the station flight begins. So that’s why. For example, we are supposed to relocate PMA-3 from the port side of Node 1 module to the [nadir] side, and this is in purpose to be ready for Node 2 docking during the mission STS-120. And, again, we will do two Russian EVAs and at least one U.S. EVA. We will supposed to meet first European vehicle, ATV [Automated Transfer Vehicle], Jules Verne, and I’m really very excited about that because it’s, this is huge and a great vehicle and I’m really looking forward to opening the hatch to this module and take a look inside for what is [there]. And, again, we have couple, not possible to say “routine” procedures but it’s not really routine. We’re supposed to relocate our Soyuz vehicle from the aft Service Module port to the FGB and, and also we’ll, we will meet two Progress vehicles. So you see it will be very busy expedition and, of course, we will work a lot with science program and with PAO [public affairs] and with Education because as you know two shuttle missions will come to us, and one of them, STS-118, will bring up Barbara Morgan, the first Educator Astronaut. So, I’m sure we will have very busy time during this flight. Also we will work with shuttle crew, mission 120, and that deliver, will bring the Flight Engineer 2 Dan Tani, and again you know our mission will be, we will be second permanent crew who will welcome two overlapping crew members from shuttle flight. We will start working with Sunita Williams, then Clayton Anderson.

Suni Williams will already be on the station when you and your commander arrive on the Soyuz. Will that be a benefit to you to find that you already have a crewmate there who’s settled in on board?

Image to left: Flight engineers Oleg Kotov (foreground) and Sunita Williams participate in a Space Station Remote Manipulator System training session using the Robotic Onboard Trainer simulator in the Unity node of the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA

Of course it’s a great advantage to have a crew member who has already been on board, because you understand that handover is a short time period -- our handover with increment 14 is going to last nine days only, and the majority of nine days will be dedicated to science experiments. It has been the experience over the past time. Of course, we have the handover program, handover for the station, for the equipment, to each other, but there are always questions remaining that we feel like asking after the hatch has already closed behind the previous crew. This, in this case, we’re going to have Suni and we will continue working with her together.

As you mentioned, you arrive to find one third crew member, Suni Williams, and are, you expect that she will be replaced by Clay Anderson, and possibly he will be replaced by Dan Tani. Does that partial rotation of, of crewmates make it more difficult for you all to train together on what you’re going to do?

Yes, true. Along with the advantages ensured by an experienced crew member on board of the ISS, it does add some difficulties to training because if you remember, previously, all the crew members usually train together. They trained together and they flew to the station, worked together, and came back together. In this case, all our training was broken down into several stages. And sometimes it’s unclear at which stage of the increment a third crew member’s going to be rotated, so the training goals are being changed as we go. If we understand that the shuttle launch date slips, so the third crew member rotation is going to slip, so the third crew member tasks are going to change. So we should always be aware that we need to catch up to something, when we need to train. Of course, it makes the training a little bit more intense.

During the first part of your mission, before Suni Williams leaves, your crew is scheduled to install and activate a new oxygen generator for the station located in the U.S. segment of the station. Tell me a little bit about that work and about the new capabilities that that system will add to the station.

This is a new system for oxygen generation that’s going to be installed in the lab module during our flight. It’s going to work as an experimental system. Suni’s going to install and activate the system. And depending on the results of her work, the system will be verified, will be double-checked and either during the flight or, or while new vehicles are being created for the flights to the moon and Mars. The system is going to be designed and perfected because we’re going to only activate it during our mission for test purposes. I don’t think it’s going to make a considerable contribution into oxygen generation during our increment; at least currently, it’s listed not as an on board system, but as an experiment. Though I think it’s a highly useful system, in particular if we’re planning to have six crew members on board of the station in the future; of course, we cannot make do without additional oxygen generators.

And it will be nice to have an additional system to add to Elektron and to the candles and to the Progress oxygen. For someone who has to breathe there, you must like that.

Yes. All in all, it’s very correct. It’s always better to have a backup, redundant system just in case during the flight for the crew on board.

You mentioned a moment ago that the plans also call for the first of the European Space Agency’s new automated supply ships to arrive at the International Space Station while you and your colleagues are there. Tell me a bit about this vehicle and how you see it to be contributing to the station operations.

As I said previously, I’m looking forward to seeing this vehicle arrive on board. We have already completed some of the training for ATV; we will go on training for ATV arrival. This vehicle is interesting because it’s capable of delivering about 7½ tons of cargo to the station: 5½ of dry cargo and about 800 kilograms of propellant to refuel the Service Module systems on the Russian segment, about 700 kilograms of water, about 100 kilograms of air or oxygen. Comparing to Progress, it’s about three times larger in terms of its capacity. On the other hand it’s going to be the first, experimental flight of this type of vehicle of the European Space Agency, so the procedure of docking, rendezvous, it’s going to take a long time, it’s going to take about 18 days. It’s going to be a ballistics experiment on board of this vehicle. This vehicle is equipped with an entirely new sensor system, entirely new software that has never been used before in spaceflight. ATV is going to have its own name: the first ATV is going to be Jules Verne, the pioneer, the explorer, a long-range vehicle. Our entire crew, we’re all ready to work with this vehicle, to receive it on board, to service it, work some on some procedures. Along with that we’re also looking forward to receiving a lot of science equipment, including European and American science equipment on board of this vehicle. That’s going to really expand our science experiment program on board of the station.

The Russian Progress vehicles, which are the backbone of the supply chain for the station right now have a system that allows a crew member on board to take over the flight of it if there should be a problem. Does the ATV have a similar system? Will you and your crewmates have the potential of flying that vehicle?

No, unfortunately -- as a pilot I say unfortunately -- ATV does not have the capability to become manned vehicle. It has a fully automated docking system. The only thing crew can do is to send a command at any time to move it away from the station and to try again a second or a third time to attempt docking. But, no, it wasn’t created for manual docking, unfortunately.

Part of the plan for the nominal operations in Expedition 15 includes something that you’ve referred to earlier, and that’s the movement of the Pressurized Mating Adapter 3 from where it has been, on the port side of Unity for several years now to the, the nadir side, the Earth-facing side, of that same module. Describe for us how that, that movement is, is going to be accomplished.

With pleasure. It’s going to be a unique operation that has never been done before. It was not during the International Space Station program, never has such a operation taken place at the same time when a module would be undocked, relocated, and another module docked, because usually undocking would happen one day, the other day the re-docking. All the three crew members of our increment are going to be involved. We have a docking specialist who’s going to work with the CBM [Common Berthing Mechanism] performing undocking and docking. We’re going to have a robotics arm operator involved who’s going to move PMA-3 ... and the third crew member who’s going to take turns helping both the CBM operator and the SSRMS operator and also perform the coordination of all the steps with the ground team. It is an integrated task, fairly complicated, and I’m sure we’ll do just fine.

The two shuttle flights that are scheduled during your increment are going to be bringing new station components as well. Tell me about the hardware. Tell me about what the S5 Truss and Node 2 are going to do to improve the station’s capabilities.

Well, if we talk about each mission individually, then it’s much more complicated than just the delivery and installation of new equipment. Let’s take STS-118. It’s unique because along with delivering S5, or the spacer truss -- we sometimes use English acronyms without even thinking what it’s called in Russian; that’s one of the peculiarities of the international training, going through the international training, both in the U.S. and in Russia. We use acronyms, English acronyms easily in our native tongue without thinking what to call it in Russian. Oh, anyway, STS-118 is going to also install an external platform for storing spares. It will deliver a SPACEHAB module that will be filled with science equipment and cargo items; we will need to install it on the station as well. Along with that, as I have previously mentioned, STS-118 is going to have a lot of activities. We’re going to have a teacher -- Barbara is coming on board. We’re going to shoot a lot of videos, video clips. Along with that during the shuttle flight there will be testing of new equipment that will allow shuttle to receive power from station. If that works, then shuttle will be able to remain docked to the station several days longer. That will ensure a great benefit from the shuttle flights. It will allow it to complete several more tasks on board of the station. It will allow it to leave more oxygen on the ISS, more in the airlock tanks, leave more propellant as well. And talking about shuttle [STS-]120, or increment 10A, if we go through the assembly sequence nomenclature, it’s going to be the first habitable module delivered to the station since Lab and airlock delivery. It’s been a while, so we’re also looking forward to that very much to increasing the habitable space on the station. Also, STS-120 will perform a unique operation, moving P6 from its current location on Z1 -- it will be docked to P5, and will make station look more balanced, better-looking, externally, and make it look more like the pictures or poster or the pin appearance.

When the P6 is moved using the Canadian robot arm it, it occurs to me that the mobile robotics system on ISS is really an essential element for successfully building this ship all, all on orbit. Talk about the contributions that the many different nations have made in designing and building this system, and then making it work in space.

It’s indeed a very good example of international cooperation and building and using the station. You know that the contribution of Canada, of the United States, of the Russian space agency, and other partners, participants in this space station program is a great one, in particular such a unique system as the robotic arm of the station that is vital to the assembly and work on the station. It was designed in Canada, built in Canada. I’m inspired by the uniqueness of the system, by the depth of the idea that lies in the system, how precise it can be on orbit moving cargo items that weigh many, many tons at a precise time. And I enjoy controlling the system. We went through training at CSA and also here at JSC, and we’re still going through training operating the arm. I really enjoy working, operating the system. So, thank you very much to all the engineers and designers who created such a unique system. It’s going to be used during our increment. I’m going to operate it during an EVA while Clayton Anderson and Fyodor Yurchikhin are going to be outside working on U.S. EVA tasks, and I’m going to be their robotics arm operator.

From the perspective of someone who has been training to operate the arm although this is not your task, give me your sense of the, the difficulty, or the challenge, of the job of moving the P6 from the top of the station out to the far port end of the truss.

The task of moving P6 Truss is probably an equal responsibility of the on-the-ground control team, MCC, and designers as well as that of the crew because the trajectory is being calculated by specialists on the ground who have to verify the trajectory to the tiniest centimeter for moving this structure from its current location to the P5 spacer truss. It is a responsible task. It requires a lot of work designing, modeling -- computer modeling—and it’s being implemented in a procedure that’s published and a flight plan that the crew will have to implement. And the crew task is to implement this plan precisely, to implement this procedure precisely, step-by-step, carefully, and very attentively, looking at the structure and maneuvering it among the existing structures and dock it at the designated position. It’s a very interesting task, and we hope to see it done.

Let’s move to the Expedition operations, the stage operations. You mentioned that there are plans for spacewalks at this time. Tell me what, what is anticipated to occur in terms of EVAs.

Image to right: Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov participates in a spacesuit fit check in the Space Station Airlock Test Article in the Crew Systems Laboratory at Johnson Space Center, Houston. Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin assisted Kotov. Image credit: NASA

I would like to start with Russian EVAs. There will be two EVAs. The main goals will be to transfer and install SMDPs [Service Module debris panels]. These are debris protection shields to be installed on the Service Module. And these are shields that are assembled in packets we call “Christmas trees.” And, the shuttle crew who flew in December installed it on the PMA-3 exterior surface. And during the EVA that we’re going to do with Fyodor Yurchikhin we’re going to take this packet, using the Russian Strela robotic arm, and we’re going to move it to the Service Module large diameter, and during the second and third EVA we’re going to take this packet apart and spread it on the exterior of the Service Module. That will allow it to protect the station, particularly the Russian segment, module, from damage caused by space debris. We’re also going to perform some space experiment tasks, installation of new experiment. It’s called Splesk, for scanning Earth biosphere. We’re going to perform some inspection, take photographs; these are tasks that are also part of the EVA, that are tasks of the Russian EVA. Also during our increment there is a U.S. EVA. Clayton and Fyodor talked about that EVA. The task is unique; it’s very interesting. So far the EVA program is not fully planned; it’s not fully known. The overall goal is to prepare P6 Truss for its relocation to P5, as we have previously mentioned. In order to do that we need to jettison the, the ammonia servicing system. That’s the main task, but other EVA tasks will depend on how the STS-118 crew completes their three or four EVAs. If they complete everything they have planned, we’ll have less to do. If for some reason they do not complete something, then this is going to be the goal of our crew, of our increment, to complete that work. So the EVA tasks we will probably know after STS-118 goes back to Earth, and then we’ll know how much we’re going to have left to do.

The main focus of the laboratory science that’s done on the International Space Station is research on how people can live and work safely, living in that environment. Tell me about some of those human life sciences experiments that you’ll be involved with on your flight.

We’re going to perform a large number of experiments of a biomedical nature, specifically. They’re going to be separated into differing groups studying biological live objects and tissue, their response to the impact of space environment, then there will be biotechnological that will allow us to develop an approach to generating some biological substances on board of the station. We will test some equipment crystallizers, ovens; we are going to work on creating biologically-active substances. We’re going to have an experiment that’s going to involve the study of space environment impact on the human body, and the other part of the experiment will be to study countermeasures, how to prevent that and counteract the negative impact. Our medical program for this flight is going to consist of different national, or multinational, sections; for the Russian crew members the priority will be the Russian experiments and part of the European and U.S. biomedical experiments. So I expect that there will be a lot of work.

This particular area of study, the effect of microgravity environment on the human body, was one of your medical specialties as, at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. Dr. Kotov, tell me, how are we doing in learning how to counteract the bad effects of living in space?

That is the question that got me started in learning the space medicine and getting that particular specialty, because I am really interested in this problem. I believe this is the specific area that’s going to open the deep space exploration to the humankind. There are two limiting factors currently to deep-space exploration. One of those is the technological problem, and it can be solved. This technological problem can be handled by the human race. And the second limiting factor, as you mentioned, is the prevention of the negative impact of zero gravity, how to be involved in a long-duration spaceflight while maintaining good health, because station work requires good health and good functioning. But if we have a long flight to Mars, for instance, you land on the planet and you’re capable to perform active work from day one and get some results; that’s the goal. Hence the direction of my work during this increment. With my colleagues on the ground we’re going to perform a range of experiments to study the improvement of countermeasures that are currently used to prevent the negative impact of zero gravity. We’re going to use some medicines, we’re going to use and check our different modes of physical exercises in space, because, you know, currently, the daily physical exercise regimen is one and a half to two hours of physical exercises are spent by crew members in, in space. If we are able to reduce the time by 30 minutes a day, then in a six-month increment that’s going to be a considerable addition to the usable crew time. It’s going to be my main area of work during science experiments.

The nations that are building and operating the International Space Station have plans for exploration that go way beyond this space station in Earth orbit. Tell me, what is your philosophy about the future human exploration of space and the contribution that the International Space Station is making to that future?

My point of view is that the International Space Station has several goals for the future and performs several functions for the future of space exploration. On one hand it’s a technological test stand where we test and design control and support equipment for a space object for a long-duration spaceflight. Along with that the station is an interesting object, or home, where people of different nationalities, from different countries, learn to work together, because, I’m not going to reveal a great secret if I say that the future of space exploration is going to be a, a multinational endeavor. In the process of globalization of the economy of the entire world, space exploration becomes a multinational task. So the ability to cooperate, work together, solve problems, including in space exploration, the station is a very good example how to do that. And even what I have been observing over the last 10 to 12 years that I have been directly involved in working in the area of space exploration, I see how people go from being concerned and suspicious of each other to very good partnership based on mutual trust that exists currently among partners to the International Space Station project. We work with different countries, we work with different people, people of different nationalities, people who are inspired by their enthusiasm and desire to explore space, to make it accessible to the humankind, to step out, for the humankind to step out of its birth planet, to go and explore other planets and move on into space. And I’m proud and very happy to be a part of this movement in this strategic area of the humankind development, that I can make my contribution in making that happen.