Blogs

New Status: Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) Status: Friday afternoon a UPA process cycle was aborted when the Fluids Control and Pump Assembly (FCPA) did not spin up to the required speed. Saturday morning new pump motor speed calibration parameters were loaded and the run was reattempted. UPA successfully processed for about 2 hours prior to shutting …

By Lora Koenig I finally made it to our field site on Thursday and we’ve been working super hard since then to make up for our delays. Jay has done an amazing job, drilling 10 hours a day, and I’m glad to report we’re back on schedule. We’ll be done by the end of today, […]

Tournament: Earth 2013 has come to a stunning end. A newcomer to the landscape—a volcano that wasn’t even above the water’s surface at the beginning of 2012—literally came out of nowhere to win our first-ever tournament. The #7 seeded El Hierro submarine eruption from the “events” bracket captured the overall crown. In a true Cinderella […]

New Status: High-Rate Communications System (HRCS) Post Installation: Today’s post installation activities consisted of the Ground conducting onboard video checkouts including Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS), Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) external cameras, JEM Remote Manipulator System (JEMRMS), POIC, Columbus Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) and Floating Potential Measurement Unit (FPMU). Installation and checkout of the redundant …

New Status: KU Communications Unit 2 Payload Telemetry Recovered: ISS KU band payload telemetry was lost yesterday afternoon with the Payload Operations Integration Center (Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC)), but was restored at 5:26 pm Wednesday after additional troubleshooting by Ground teams. The issue was due to incorrect MAC addresses from Automated Payload Switch (APS) …

By Lora Koenig April 3, 2013 — Well, if there is one thing you can count on when doing fieldwork, it is that plans will change. Good thing we always have a plan A and plan B ready. But today we must have hit plan H, because we were not really ready for it. Originally […]

New Status: High-Rate Communications System (HRCS) KU Communications Unit 2 Installation/Checkout (Day 2): Commander (CDR) Chris Hadfield and Flight Engineer (FE)-6 Tom Marshburn rotated the Lab 1S6 rack and wrapped up connections in Video Switch Unit (VSU) 3 in the aft endcone. Following this activity the actual transition from legacy Ku-band to Ku-Comm Unit 2 occurred …

By Lora Koenig April 1, 2013 — I was tossing and turning this morning between 5 and 6:30 am, anticipating our 8:15 am scheduled take-off. Our gear was packed and we were ready to go. I rolled out of bed at 6:30, looked out the window and realized our luck had run out: I couldn’t […]

New Status: High-Rate Communications System (HRCS) Ku-band Communications Unit (Ku Comm Unit) Installation/Checkout: The Ku-band is a frequency used primarily for satellite communications, and specifically for ISS communications.  Some of the ISS original Ku-band system subcomponents are being replaced to increase data processing volume and speed.  Over the next two weeks the crew will replace the …

How much and how fast will sea level rise in the coming decades? What makes sea level rise hard to predict? Who will be affected? NASA scientists and guests discussed this and much more in a Google+ Hangout on April 2, 2013. You can watch an archived version of the hangout below. Hangout participants included: […]