From Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars, explore the world of human spaceflight with NASA each week on the official podcast of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Listen to in-depth conversations with the astronauts, scientists and engineers who make it possible.
On episode 383, four NASA flight controllers discuss specialized operations like spacewalks and spacecraft arrivals that keep the International Space Station running. This episode was recorded December 17, 2024.
Transcript
Kenna Pell (Host)
Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, episode 383, Mission Control Special Operations. I’m Kenna Pell, and I’ll be your host today. On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers and astronauts all to let you know what’s going on in the world of human space flight and more. The Mission Control Center, or MCC for short, is the iconic epicenter of space flight operations. It takes a large, talented team in order to assure the safety and success of any mission, whether to low Earth orbit or beyond. You may have seen depictions of Mission Control in the movies or seen video of it during a NASA broadcast, the mission control team is there, 24/7 365, monitoring all of the systems and activities aboard our orbiting laboratory each day is covered by three shifts of controllers who do a handover between, to ensure that everything runs smoothly. This is the fifth episode in a series we’re dedicating to exploring the roles within MCC in the International Space Station Flight Control Room. In this episode, we’ll be covering four console positions, including Visiting Vehicle Officer, or VVO with Dory Tomayko. Integration and Systems Engineer, or ISE with Lisa Harris Redman. Extra Vehicular activities, or EVA with Lucas Widner and Robotics Operations Officer. Or ROBO with Alyssa Saenz these flight controllers cover what we’re calling Special Operations. Their console positions are unique in that they are activated during specific dynamic operational events, whether that’s monitoring stations traffic of arriving or departing spacecraft venturing out into the vacuum of space on a spacewalk or operating Station’s Robotic helper. Let’s dive into the action with Special Operations recorders to flight speed,
VVO,
Dorothy Tomayko
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Kenna Pell
ISE
Lisa Harris Redmond
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Kenna Pell
EVA
Lucas Widner
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Kenna Pell
ROBO
Alyssa Saenz
Go.
Kenna Pell
We are go for Houston We Have a Podcast.
<Intro Music>
Kenna Pell
Welcome to Houston We Have a Podcast. So we called today’s episode special operations. We’ve got a packed house here, and a lot of times you all aren’t on console until there’s action. Let’s go around and let’s meet you all. Can you say your name your console. Talk about how you got to be where you’re at, maybe mentioning your college degrees. Let’s start with VVO.
Dorothy Tomayko
So my name is Dorrie Tamayko. I’m a VVO, a visiting vehicle officer, so we’re partially in charge of safety whenever there’s a vehicle coming to the space station. I went to college at Purdue University. I have an undergrad degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering with a minor in communications, and then I went on to get my Master’s in leadership from Northeastern
Kenna Pell
I think we’ll get a little bit we’ll get to that a little bit later, about how your training in communications and leadership has helped in your role. And so let’s go over to ice with Lisa,
Lisa Harris Redmond
I’m Lisa Harris Redmond from the ice group, the integration and systems engineer. I focus on visiting vehicles coming to and from the space station, and while they’re there, in visiting. I have a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, with a minor in Russian language and a degree, master’s degree in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota,
Kenna Pell
now over to Lucas with EVA.
Lucas Widner
Hi, I’m Lucas Widener with the EVA console. EVA stands for extra vehicular activity, which is when the crew is outside upgrading or repairing the space station. And our job is to keep them safe while they do so. I have a undergraduate degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, in aerospace engineering, and that brought me here to NASA, and I’ve been here about five and a half years.
Kenna Pell
I have to say he has the coolest shirt on right now, button down with planets and rockets. It’s really cool. Thanks, Lucas. And now let’s go over to ROBO Alyssa.
Alyssa Saenz
Hi. My name is Alyssa Saenz. I am a member of the ROBO group. It’s the Robotic operations console. We are in charge of sending commands to the Robotics aboard ISS, and also training crew to operate the Robotics on ISS as well. My background is in aerospace engineering. I got my undergraduate degree from Texas, A&M Gig ’em Aggies, and a few years later, I got my master’s in space operations from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.
Kenna Pell
Now that we’ve gotten to know what each of your flight control positions and Mission Control do, let’s dive in a little deeper. And I kind of want to get to know on a instead of a fifth grade, 10,000 foot level, a little bit more about each of your positions. So let’s start with Dory with VVO. What type of data are you using when you got a visiting vehicle?
Dorothy Tomayko
So we rely mostly on data coming from the vehicle. So for my console position, we’re looking at where the vehicle is relative to ISS. So we call the path that it’s on the trajectory. So we’re checking the trajectory all the time, and we are using data, usually from the vehicle sensors. Usually they have a sensor suite, at least two different kinds, so that we can have some checks and balances. And so we’re watching data from those sensors to figure out where it is. We’re also in charge of G and C, guidance, navigation and control, which is where it is, where it wants to go, and how it’s going to get there. And so the where it is is that trajectory, where it wants to go is it’s targeting, it’s coming to station, but we need to make sure it does that safely. And then how it’s going to get there is propulsion. And so we watch the jets, and we’re making sure that those are performing correctly as well. And then I mentioned a little bit about independent we also help develop and then train the crew to use the software that they use to watch the vehicle coming in. They use ISS cameras and some graphics we overlay on top of it using ROBO system, and that allows them to independently monitor the vehicle as well. So we’d like to make sure all the pieces line up so that we know the truth about where the vehicle is and that everything is safe.
Kenna Pell
You explained that so well, I’m gonna be writing that down for later use. What about ephemeris? If I’m saying that, right, you are,
Dorothy Tomayko
yeah. So that’s when the vehicle provider gives us data about where it is that’s usually used when it’s a little farther away from station. So I know you guys talked to TOPO recently. We do kind of a similar job in some aspects. With visiting vehicles, they’re more responsible when it’s farther away, and then we’re more responsible when it’s closer. And so generally, once the vehicle gets close, it starts talking to us about where it is relative to ISS versus where it is just in space.
Kenna Pell
Okay, so does your role really kick in when you’re around that approach ellipsoid or a little bit further out?
Dorothy Tomayko
Good vocab use, yeah. So depends on the vehicle. A little bit for crewed vehicles, we also have responsibility for launch and some of the far field activities. But generally, the handover starts when they’re going to start using any of our assets, whether that’s the comm system, whether we have to change our attitude, or whether we’re going to have the crew involved. And so we kick in a couple hours before they get to the approach ellipsoid.
Kenna Pell
That was really helpful. And the only reason I knew what ephemeris data was is from our Spot The Station app TOPO helps with that, and so you can see about two weeks out where the station’s going to be, and get those notifications straight to your phone. So with autonomous capability. So yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit on console for at the time this podcast was recorded for Dragon’s undocking from space station yesterday on the Commercial Resupply Services 31st cargo mission. So it had undocked. And I’m wondering, what when it’s in that kind of autonomous capability mode, or even when it’s arriving, right? What are you looking out for?
Dorothy Tomayko
Yeah, so our hope is that the vehicle stays in autonomous mode all the time, even the ones that the crew is on board and they can manually operate. We always hope that we get to do it automated. That’s the ideal goal with the vehicle telling us where it wants to go and how it wants to get there and the ground, or the crew on board providing different gateways to make sure that what it wants to do is safe. So we’re checking its operations, checking its systems, making sure that the decisions that it’s making and the data it’s using to make those decisions are good, and then stepping in if we need to. And if there’s crew on board, they also have the option to step in as well. So for Soyuz or a Dragon or CST,
Kenna Pell
so hoping it stays autonomous, and then you kick in when maybe it isn’t. What about even when the hooks, when they unhook, when they’re on docking, that’s fully autonomous as well.
Dorothy Tomayko
Yep. So, um, for grappling vehicles, when we start using ROBO system, the crews involved, and the actual operation of grappling is done by humans. But our hope for all the approach and even for the docking is that it’s all done automated.
Kenna Pell
Got it, Okay. And now you’d mentioned this. Are all videos trained on specific vehicles or all?
Dorothy Tomayko
yeah, so it’s a little of both. The video role is somewhat generic in that the pieces I talked about, you can do that for any vehicle. And so we often have the ability to step in and on a more quiescent part of the mission. So when it’s flying or just doing burns farther away, we have more videos that can step in and do it, but then we kind of get expertise in a specific vehicle or a couple of vehicles, so the actual docking day, or the grappling day, is going to be done by a specific set of VVO’s who have done additional training and gained additional knowledge to have more expertise on that specific vehicle.
Kenna Pell
Okay, and there’s so many. Vehicles, I know, actually, for the first time in history, in 2024 we had three different vehicles, spacecraft that carried humans to the space station, docked at the same time. So with Starliner, Dragon and Soyuz, that was a cool fact from this year, and a piece of history that your team gets to work with
Dorothy Tomayko
Absolutely, and we’ve got new cargo vehicles coming up as well. So Sierra is going to be coming. Jaxa is bringing a new vehicle, HBDX, and then axiom is going to bring a module that, until it gets there, acts as a visiting vehicle. And so we can help Cygnus and Dragon with their and Progress with their current cargo ops, and help lighten that load a little bit for them.
Kenna Pell
That’s really exciting Okay, thanks, Dory. Let’s go over to ice with Lisa. I’m going to ask a few more questions. So are you primarily on console during arrival and docking of birthing?
Lisa Harris Redmond
So we come for a combination of things. So we arrive shortly before we turn on the comm systems, we check those out. We’ll do a series of checks to make sure that the visiting vehicles control center commands are getting through all the way to the vehicle, and then we will support from that point forward, all the way through until we have captured, either captured or docked and integrated all the systems on board. Do power checks, do comm checks with the internal systems on ISS. And then if there’s additional payload activities, for external payloads, etc, things like that, we’ll stay for for that. And then we will go into what’s called quiescent mode. And then we’ll only come in for certain specific activities. For the crewed vehicles. They’ll wake them up for do some system checks and things like that. We’ll support that or any other special activities that are vehicle specific. And then we will come back at the end of that mission. They all have kind of varied lengths of mission to again, turn on the comm system, do a series of systems checks for the vehicles and support all the way through until it leaves the keep out sphere, and in the case of some of the crewed vehicles, until those are on the ground, to ensure that our crew is safe and the systems are operating the way we would expect them to.
Kenna Pell
I didn’t think about that, because the spacecraft are docked there for months at a time, right? And so once, I guess, the job is done, once it’s stocked, it’s safely there, then it goes into that quiescent mode. But then you have to come back on to turn it back on and check the different systems. It’s just something I didn’t think about.
Lisa Harris Redmond
We do keep an eye on it. It’s, you know, it’s still alive, and it’s passing health and status, telemetry and environmental and electrical all sorts of things. And I can log into that at any time and take a look, even from my desk at home, which is really kind of neat. If we have experienced an issue with the spacecraft. For some reason, it’s rare, but it does happen. We’ll come in and support the visiting vehicle team and the ISS flight control team to save that vehicle and make sure that it’s back in its nominal state, or the best we can get it to.
Kenna Pell
And so Dragon, it’s a pressurized trunk. It carries big payloads. And recently we carried, let’s say we, Dragon carried, a codex up there. Do you work with ROBO? Are you on console? You work with ROBO? When they’re grabbed, they’re taking that out to install it on station.
Lisa Harris Redmond
It really depends on what integrated system it is, with the dragon itself, or the systems that are holding that in there, and what’s needed, as far as cameras and switch throws and things like that to release the payload. It just, it really depends on what the operation is, but yes, generally, we’ll support external payload operations, the Dream Chaser that’s coming up, that’ll have some capabilities as well, that has some systems that will need our assistance with the ROBO team, and we provide the coordination between the visiting vehicle team and the Robotics team as they need to make sure that there’s the ROBOs can focus on their job and the visiting vehicles doing their job, and then where the go between, between the two to make sure that all the systems are going smoothly and the procedures are running integrated well,
Kenna Pell
that’s fascinating, and I did not think about all the things you mentioned about kind of restarting and making sure it was all good for departure. Okay, let’s go over to Lucas with EVA. I had a few questions on what all that you do, and especially when it comes to the lead up to a spacewalk. How many months ahead are you planning for a day of Space Walk procedures.
Lucas Widner
Yeah, so the fun part about space walks is it’s people performing them up on the Space Station, and we really want to make sure that they are fully trained, not only in the tasks that they’re doing, but also in safety. So all of that starts about two years before they launch, when they’re assigned to their. Mission. So we do a whole suite of NBL runs and classes where they get to practice, not only getting their suits ready for the space walks, but the specific operations they’re going to be doing outside. So the first two thirds of that training is kind of generic, getting them ready to prepare the space walks and then develop the skills that they need to perform the majority of the tasks that they would see on the space station. So a lot of repairing our common electronics and cooling and power equipment up there, and then, while they’re doing those tasks, we will throw all these malfunctions at them, pretend that their space suits are failing, or their buddy goes incapacitated, and they have to learn how to pull them back to the airlock safely and recover from any of those cases. So we make sure that they have all of those skills really nailed down. And then about six months before launch, we start to focus on what specific tasks are planned for the six month period they’re on board the space station. And because we’re always looking at, what are the things that are breaking on the space station, what are the upgrades we want to make, and kind of trying to fit all those puzzle pieces into a six and a half hour EVA and figuring out which of those tasks pairs wells together. So usually about a year before the spacewalk, which is right towards the end of the cruise training, is when we have somewhat of an idea of what that’ll be. And so we’ll start showing them that, specifically in the NBL, so that they’re prepared for those tasks. And then as they launch to the space station, and as it gets closer to about a month, we’re refining all those procedures on the ground. We’re having more of their crewmates that are still on the ground do more NBL runs, practicing those skills and really nailing in all of the specific choreography, because in that six and a half hours, we have to plan out every single tether that they use, and every single bolt that they drive, we have to really be thinking about and what do we do if that goes wrong? So that process takes months, and it’s a lot of planning, and we have a lot of folks supporting us as we come up with that overall plan.
Kenna Pell
I like, if I have this right, how you mentioned maybe about a year out, you’re kind of doing generic training with the crew, maybe Planning for Contingencies, or hopefully not planning, but how to handle contingencies if they come up kind of more the generic getting to know, you know, in the NBL. But then you said, at six months, it kind of gets more granular, so they get you maybe, you know what the space station needs at that point is, would you say that’s about right? So first it’s kind of general with the crew, we know they’re going to station, and then it gets a little bit more granular on the task
Lucas Widner
yeah. And that time frame, of course, can change depending on what the specific issue is. And sometimes it’ll be less than three months before a space walk and something breaks on board. And we get asked, Well, does this fit in any of your planned space walks? Can we go do this extra task? And so we have to really hurry to do some NBL runs, or take past experience that we have figure out if that’s feasible to add in, if it keeps the two crew members close enough to each other to where it’s safe, they could rescue each other, all of those little things. And then again, we just take as much information as we have at the time to build the best plan that we have. And then as it gets closer, we firm up a lot more of those answers. But there are some space walks where it’s a higher priority contingency, case where something very important will fail, and it can be less than two weeks between that failure happening and our team on the ground getting ready, our crew members studying and getting their suits ready, and us actually going outside and fixing that, and all of the crew members are trained on kind of those really important things. So that was part of that early generic training, so that if that happens, we have a good enough plan to where we can go out and be successful.
Kenna Pell
Got it Okay, what does the makeup of the team look like? So when we’re talking about kind of that generic EVA spacewalk training, is that the same team, and then when you get into the more specifics, is that a team that’s assigned to a certain space walk?
Lucas Widner
Yeah, so there’s two main sides to the EVA office, and the first side is the system side, and this is the side that manages the space suits and the air lock. So that’s basically the team that gets the suits and everything ready for us to go outside and keeps the crew safe while we’re out there, so we’re monitoring suit data while they’re outside, and if anything with the suit looks funny, or figuring out a plan to get them safely back inside. And then the other side of the house, the task side, which is the side that I’m focusing on right now, is what we’re doing outside and actually accomplishing the work when we have the functioning spacesuits and airlock so there will be team members from both sides working together on training the crew to start. So there will be folks in our office that are assigned to a specific missions crew, so they will train that crew from the start to the end, make sure that they see everything they need to for their six month assignment on the space station, and then it’s usually a different team that’s the ones planning the actual space walk. So the task side has to start that planning a lot earlier. Like I mentioned on the system side, it’s a very similar path to get the suits ready for each space walk so they don’t really care what we’re doing outside. It’s it’s more of just in the month or so before the space walk actually doing the work to get all those space suits ready and get everything properly configured before they go out. But the task team has been developing that plan for months, and then, like I mentioned, once we get within about a month of the space walk, that’s when it really starts to get busy. That’s when the crew on board is actually setting things up using those procedures and the products that we developed ahead of time. And then during the we call it the execute day of EVA. That’s when those planning teams from both sides are on console. And then we have one EVA flight controller in the front room, the main mission control center, that is talking to both the task and the system side during the EVA, and they’ve been kind of overseeing all of that prep as well.
Kenna Pell
Very cool. I know we talk about ops plan and how the cruise day is really kind of built into five minute increments, but what you guys do for the specific space walks. I mean, that’s down to the hand movement, the tether like that is really, really to the nitty gritty with for what the six to eight hour time frame. Thanks, Lucas, that was a great overview. Alyssa, let’s go over to you with ROBO. I did tell Tim Braithwaite from Canadian Space Agency that I would shout him out for being the first ROBO. But can you tell us about CSAs involvement in this console position?
Alyssa Saenz
Yeah definitely. I think that’s one of my favorite things about the ROBO group, is that we’re actually an international group. So on any given day, the Robotic team might be some NASA flight controllers and might be flight controllers from the Canadian Space Agency, so either here in Houston or up in Canada and there, yeah, they have a control center up there that they can command to ISS Robotics as well. And they’ll come down. Our Canadian counterparts will come down to Houston for training. We also go up to Canada for training as well. And yeah, we have really close relationships with them as well, and it’s a really cool collaboration aspect of ROBO so CSA, their contribution to the ISS was the Robotic system. So some of the different components of ISS Robotics is the space station remote manipulator system, or SSRMS. You’ll also hear it referred to as Canada Arm two, the first Canada Arm was on the shuttle. Of course, the other component we have is a Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator. We also call it Dexter for short, or SPDM. SPDM does some of the more dexterous tasks on stations. So if there is some kind of electronics box that might fail, instead of having, you know, a whole EVA spin up, if we can do it Robotically, that’s always the preference, save the cruise day for other tasks. We also have a mobile based system that allows our Robotics to move completely across ISS. So we have quite a bit of access to different areas. So we work closely with our visiting vehicle teams, for example, when we’re maneuvering a payload out of, let’s say, a dragon trunk, and then installing it to ISS, we can use Dexter and ssrms for those tasks.
Kenna Pell
And so when you’re doing a task like that, are the folks in Canada at their mission control center also in the loop. So you’ve got the folks here in Houston and them,
Alyssa Saenz
yeah, definitely. We have engineering support located in Canada as well. So yeah, it just kind of depends how the shift works out. Who’s supporting from Canada, who’s supporting here from Houston, but it’s usually a mixed bag of folks. For sure.
Kenna Pell
I love that. Okay, do you have a favorite EVA or space walk that you’ve worked?
Alyssa Saenz
Yeah, definitely. So I was a part of the irosa EVA team, and that was a Robotically supported EVA. So we work really closely with our friends over in EVA to plan the Robotic trajectories that will actually carry crew from, you know, one part of station to another. And we are able to put a crew member on the end of the arm and fly them around station. And that’s actually something that the crew will support, so they’re the ones flying the arm, versus a lot of our other operations are ground control focused, but that’s always an EVA day is always a very exciting day to work, and it’s cool seeing all of your trajectories that you designed now carrying a crew member in space around the ISS. And it’s I got to be a part of, you know, upgrading the ISS with new solar arrays for that particular EVA. So that was probably one of my favorite assignments I’ve gotten to do in recent years.
Kenna Pell
So cool. And if you haven’t seen the photos of Woody Hoburg actually on the arm while they were doing the installation. They are so good?
Alyssa Saenz
Yeah, they’re fun.
Kenna Pell
Okay, so a lot of times in our office and the external relations office, we take folks on protocol, protocol tours, and we take them to the flight control room, the mission control center there, the viewing room, right? So we’ll see you guys all on console. And a lot of times they ask, what are the different symbols, like the bat on ad Coast console? What are those stand for? And so I wanted to ask if any of you are there any traditions or anything that you’d want to share, and feel free to chime in.
Lisa Harris Redmond 25:46
So Dori and I on the VVO and the ISE console, we like to put different models of the different spaceships that are visiting the space station at that time at the ISE console. For the Cygnus, we’ll put a little swan, or we have a couple of different dragons based on which dragon it is, if it’s cargo or or a crude dragon. And so we kind of have a little fun with with toys at our console. And then she’s got more interesting toys at hers.
Dorothy Tomayko
Yeah, we try to have the model of the vehicle that’s up there all the time. And so sometimes that’s Legos. Sometimes they’re 3d printed. There are some really cool folks out there who will look at a vehicle and design a Lego model for that specific vehicle, and it’s very intricate and very detailed. And so we try to have one of those on console for any vehicle that we’ve got supporting so you might not always see them, but behind us there’s a little table. And recently it’s been nice. There are lots of those little vehicles up there, because we’ve been really busy this year.
Kenna Pell
And before, CRS, our Commercial Resupply Services, what did you guys have there? Instead of dragons and Cygnus and Swan shuttle, what do you what were you putting on there?
Dorothy Tomayko
Like, yeah. So the our Russian counterparts have been coming to and from the space station for a long time, and so we’ve had a great relationship with them for many, many years. And so we’ve always got a little Soyuz or Progress that that’s around, because there’s always at least a handful of those on board station.
Kenna Pell
I made a face like, Duh. What kind of question was that? But cool. I love that. And how about EDA when I was sitting there and ROBO when I was sitting in Mission Control? Yesterday I saw a cannon arm on I think it was ROBOs. Yeah,
Alyssa Saenz
I believe we do have a little 3d model on our console. And we also have a little flag stand with the US flag, and the Canadian flag as well, just to kind of show the international aspect of our console.
Kenna Pell
Love that. How about EVA?
Lucas Widner
The EVA console has a little Lego mini figure in a space suit on top of the console, which is pretty fun, a representation of what we do outside. One other thing that the EVA console does that the public doesn’t really get to see is that when we’re developing space walks, there tends to be a theme or a mascot that just gets created at some point during the development. And so we like to carry those forward and have callbacks. So in the week or two leading up to a spacewalk, we have these conferences with the astronauts where we talk through our plan and any things that we’re specifically worried about, just being sure we’re on the same page. And so sometimes we’ll like wear funny shirts that call back to that theme, or we’ll bring in little mascots with us for those conferences, just to add a little bit of humor into our serious topics.
Dorothy Tomayko
Very cool. The one thing we all hope isn’t on our console is the Gremlin.
Kenna Pell
Okay, I’ve heard about this. Can you explain?
Dorothy Tomayko
Yeah, so there’s a there’s a little gremlin stuffed animal, and whoever’s console has been dealing with the most headache recently will often find the Gremlin on their console. And so when you come in to start your shift, it’s always a good idea to look at at your sign and make sure there’s no Gremlin there. So you know what kind of day you’re walking into.
Kenna Pell
That’s funny. Okay, well, we have referred to this episode as special operations, because your jobs on console usually kick in when there are dynamic operational events. Let’s talk about how you all interact during a mission in terms of working together VVO and ISE. Can you talk about that?
Lisa Harris Redmond
Sure we actually work together quite closely in the pre flight phase, and all the way up through through the when VVO goes off console, they’re they’re done once they capture and they’ll stick around for a couple other things, but we spend a lot of time reviewing safety protocols, safety information. They rely heavily on the comm system that we maintain between the two vehicles they are also, they talked about instrumentation. That comm system is also providing some vehicle positional information to them as well, as well as providing information for the Robotics overlays for the crew. So everybody’s really interested in that comm system, and then that’s working properly. We talk a lot to the Robotics team, especially for Cygnus, that we can get power from the Robotics arm to get a little additional power boost. They’re the only vehicle that can do that that grapples. So we talked to them. We talked to them quite a bit about payload operations for external payloads. I don’t get a lot of time with EVA mostly because we’re never going to be doing EVAs and bringing in a visiting vehicle at the same time, but we do make sure that our vehicles are in a safe config for what’s called the inhibit pad before they go outdoors, and that’s just ensuring that we’re not going to fire any jets at them or, you know, get the crew in a position around our vehicle. That’s not safe.
Kenna Pell
Can you explain what you meant by power boost with the arm
Lisa Harris Redmond
So they can, when they capture through the particular grapple fixture that they have, we can provide power from the ISS. So we can switch the power system on the Cygnus from their solar arrays only in batteries, only to providing power like we would if they were actually plugged in with a cable once they get to the their node position, or wherever they’re going to be birthed for the duration. So we apply power to them through the Robotics arm fairly early, and then they’re all charged up in and in a great position by the time we actually get them birthed, whereas the other vehicles don’t necessarily have that capability, and so they’re wanting to be on ISS power a lot longer before their batteries are fully charged
Alyssa Saenz
I like to think of it as a Robotics extension cord.
Kenna Pell
Very nice. Okay, I was going to ask with VVO, not all spacecraft are the same. Can you explain difference, of course, between birthing and docking, and then, who are you working with most, with birthing operations?
Dorothy Tomayko
Yeah. So a lot of the difference between berthing and docking is just at the very end, right? The vehicle still has to get from the ground all the way to the space station. And so, you know, 95% of that’s going to look the same, but that 5% really matters. And so for grappling, vehicle comes up underneath the space station, and it hangs out about 25, 30 feet away. And then we have our ROBO friends come in and they do the actual they train the crew to do the actual grappling operation. And so pre flight, ROBOs and videos work together a lot, because we’ve got the crew using ROBO system monitoring, and then at some point they go from watching to doing, and that handover has to be very fluid and has to be very well rehearsed. And so we work on training the crew together with the ROBOs, so that that transition happens very smoothly. And then for docking, the vehicle goes off course all the way to contact on its own, under very fine control. And so that’s all everybody watching, because at that point you can’t afford any level of delay, so you don’t want to interface with the vehicle at all, because it’s, you know, tracking just inches to make contact happen successfully.
Kenna Pell
I like how you had mentioned working with ROBO. I was just gonna ask ROBO for birthing, you know, operations like with Cygnus. You’re working closely with VVO. And, you know, we mentioned that you train the crew to grapple it and to grab it and, you know, park it at Space Station. You’re on console there to support if needed. Right? Has there ever been a case that you needed to jump in and help?
Alyssa Saenz
Yeah definitely. We are monitoring very closely for mission control when the crew is doing robotic operations, especially something as dynamic as a visiting vehicle capture. We do train the crew to have some memorized responses using what we call a free flyer capture cue card if something does go wrong and there’s no comm with mission control. For whatever reason, they have certain things that they can execute to put ISS and put the vehicle in a safe config. We can jump in if we need to, if it’s, you know, more of a complex failure, and we can handle it from the ground. Then we’re able to take over and tell the crew there their job is done for the day after they’ve grappled it. We do take over from the ground for the actual installation process, working closely with VVO, and also very closely with OSO, who does the common berthing mechanism operation. So from the ground, we’ll maneuver the vehicle, you know, right next to station, right in front of where the vehicle is going to be installed. And we work, yep, closely with OSO to get it installed at the CBM itself.
Kenna Pell
We had NASA astronaut Don Pettit on the show a few episodes back. And of course, he’s on the International Space Station now. And one of his stories I really like was he was the first one to grapple or to capture the cargo Dragon, and that’s when Dragon was actually birthed, instead of autonomous, autonomously docking. And now he’s on space station again. It sees it full circle where that vehicle has evolved, and now it docks on its own, which I thought was just kind of full circle and really cool. Last night he posted a really cool video of Dragon departing space station. You got to check it out. Um, over to EVA. Throw you into the mix. Can you tell us how closely you’re working with ROBO on day of EVA? Yeah.
Lucas Widner
So as Alyssa mentioned, sometimes we do get to work together really closely. So there are some EVAs that we can accomplish without the use of the robotic arm, but there’s a lot of things on the space station that we just can’t reach without using the robotic arm as basically a big tripod to hold the crew members in place so that they can actually reach what they need to so for those EVAs, we identify that months out, and we create our plan for the EVA with our robotics counterparts. And the iROSA’s was a great example of that. So we figured out we need to bring these big solar arrays halfway across station and install them in a place where we don’t have the means to do so otherwise. So we figured out a plan for how to carry those big, heavy objects out there and how to safely get them where we needed to. And then we trained the crew members on board to operate the arm concurrently with the EVA happening, which is really cool. And we actually have some ways that we can do that training simultaneously in VR, where we have two crew members with VR headsets on, and they’re actually holding on to this mass simulator where it feels like they’re holding the real solar arrays, except there’s just motors moving this little box that they’re holding. And then there’s other crew members at a robotics console simulating moving the robotic arm. And as they move that it’ll change how that mass simulator moves. So we get to practice all of that choreography happening at once. We do also have a robotic arm in the NBL, so we can practice some of those motions, but the geometry is a little bit different, since we’re in a pool instead of a real big 3d space station. So the combination of those two tools really helps us train everyone beforehand, and then day of the EVA, we have the crew members on board the station flying the robotic arm during the EVA, while in Mission Control, ROBO and EVA are supporting, watching, making sure everything’s going as planned and ready to respond if there’s issues
Kenna Pell
you guys have, naturally full circle. Gone back to how each other works with each other on console, I really liked your mention of the extension cord. So question to everyone, what? What other support do you all have when you’re supporting these dynamic operations back rooms?
Dorothy Tomayko
Yeah, absolutely. We at the VVO console. We have three different back rooms. I mentioned that we’re in charge of trajectory, and also there are some systems on the vehicle we care about that are related and, of course, crew monitoring. And so that’s a lot of information. And kind of, as EVA mentioned, we kind of split that in half. And so we’ve got a console called VD support that’s looking more at systems and following the crew and looking at the timeline. And then we’ve got a position called VDP, VD profile, and that’s the trajectory that the vehicle is following. And so that’s how we split in the back room, with both of those people reporting up. And then we have a unique position called AERO, and AERO goes out to our providers control center. So they’ll go out to SpaceX, they’ll go to Russia, they’ll go to Japan. And so they provide an interface opportunity out there. And so it’s nice because it provides back to NASA information about what’s going on at the providers control center, but arrow also gives the provider some insight into what’s going on at NASA. And so they’ve been in Mission Control. They know what they’re thinking. They know what kind of information we want to hear. And so it’s really about integrating, and it’s about helping both sides efficiently communicate information and get where we need to get as quickly as possible.
Kenna Pell
Anyone else with the back rooms, you see the person on console, but you don’t realize how much is going on behind the scenes at the same time.
Lisa Harris Redmond
So we also have a back room who provides systems level expertise to us for very specific, dynamic operations. They’re called Vega, and then we work closely with the provider control rooms as well. We have a counterpart or two in each of the various control rooms that we work very closely with. And then again, we have the AERO. If we needed some support from AERO, we can, you know, have them run some stuff down for us, but we work very closely with the different visiting vehicle providers as well.
Kenna Pell
Dory. Ask you, what is arrow an acronym?
Dorothy Tomayko
It is, yeah, ascent entry rendezvous officer
Kenna Pell
Got it Okay, which makes very much sense that you’d be working together with them. And what about Vega?
Lisa Harris Redmond
Vega? You know, I’m not actually sure it has it as it has a name. And, yeah, I would have to look at it. I don’t think it has a like an acronym. I don’t think it stands for anything. We just called it Vega. I don’t know
Kenna Pell
it does sound cool, yeah. Okay. And then how about when something unexpected happens, anything from a space suit issue to receiving some incorrect information from a spacecraft. How do all of your teams work together? And does it go back to those back rooms and working with them?
Alyssa Saenz
And yeah, so I’ll add that ROBO will always have three flight controllers on a console no matter the operation we’re doing. We have the front room flight controller ROBO, and then we have an MSS system. So MSS is mobile servicing system, and then we have an MSS task. When we see a failure on console, the MSS systems, they’re kind of in charge the tech. They’re the technical expert of the group, and so they’re kind of in charge of looking at troubleshooting and recovery, and they’ll lead that effort. Our MSS task. Their role is while MSS systems a little more heads down, they are keeping up with the calls on the flight loop, coordinating, coordinating with other back rooms, keeping an eye on what crew is doing, making sure we’re not missing any activities there and then row boat kind of serves as the final independent check of MSS systems. Once we have a plan together, they’re working very closely to make sure it makes sense for the configuration that we’re in the objective of the day. Very different if it’s an EVA day versus if we’re just maneuvering the arm to get into a park position. That’ll definitely influence what our forward plan might be,
Kenna Pell
got it. Okay,
Lucas Widner
one thing I think that’s common for all of us when things go wrong is we do a lot of training beforehand. We do flight controller simulations, where we practice when things break or when things don’t go our way, and we exercise all of the contingency procedures that we’ve made ahead of time. And for EVA, there are some situations with the space suit where the crew needs to act immediately, and they have these memorized responses that we always train them for during their NBL training and here on the ground, so that if it happens on the real space walk, they can respond. And then there’s other things where they might want some help from the ground team. For example, if their tethers get tangled, we might be able to point one of our cameras up at them and see where their tether is wrapped and talk them through how to undo that, or get their partner over there to take a look at them and and help them out a little bit.
Kenna Pell
This all sounds like it takes a lot of training, special knowledge, and I want to get to that topic here real quick. Can you tell us about the training process to become certified, front room certified, and it might look a little bit different for each of your consoles, or does it look similar? Can you explain that?
Dorothy Tomayko
I think generally speaking, it’s fairly similar in that you do training towards sometimes there’s kind of an analyst role where you maybe provide technical support to the team, but you’re not necessarily on console first, and then you train to sit in the back room, sometimes at one of the seats, if you’ve got a back room, like we do with two consoles. You train both of the seats so that you understand the full job, and we try to give people a chance to actually do that job too. So once you’ve trained, it actually work a couple missions and get to really experience it and reap the benefits of all that training. And then you transition to training for the front as well, so that you can work in the FCR. And one of the pieces we haven’t talked about is that we also provide the training for those people that are doing the console work. And so sometimes you do it in a parallel path, or sometimes instead of doing flight control, you go do the training aspect of it. And so you’re coming up with the cases that we’re throwing at the teams to give them a hard time, and you’re helping give them feedback afterwards, and you’re doing quizzes and sign offs on their technical knowledge. And so you’ve got kind of both pieces of that that happen for, I think, all disciplines.
Lisa Harris Redmond
Yeah so when you’re sitting in the front room, it’s really important that you know exactly what your backroom job is, and that’s why we start from the bottom up. They become experts in the system that they’re being trained for in that particular system, and then they can take that knowledge forward to the front room, and especially for our position, see the bigger picture overall, and understanding what they need from that person in the back room who’s supporting them. So it’s really important that they understand from the bottom up, versus versus top down. And then, like with with Dory, we work very closely together between the two consoles, where we then go into a training mode and take the skills that we’ve earned learned as a front room and a back room and start to apply those to their trainees, so that we have a well rounded, well balanced team.
Kenna Pell
And so for VVO and ISE, do you all when you’re getting certified and trained, do you do specifically to the vehicle, a spacecraft that’s arriving, or do. You kind of have a similar overarching training that covers all
Lisa Harris Redmond
So we start with a generic training. We have taken a past vehicle that no longer flies, and we provide training on those simulations, and they learn the systems, from our standpoint, they learn the systems. They learn the skills that we’re trying to implement on how to understand vehicle systems, how to understand a comm system, how to recognize issues and problems and solve those and react to them properly. And they train on that generic vehicle. And then, once they’ve achieved their certification, they’re assigned to a specific vehicle where they turn around and use those skills that they learn generically, and say, here’s what I care about in an electrical system in this vehicle, because I learned that in the generic thing. I care about this for the comm system. I care about this for the ECLSS system. And they learn those skills for that specific vehicle. And then once you’ve mastered that real vehicle, it’s very easy to transition over to a different vehicle and become kind of a jack of all trades, but we do focus maybe on two or three vehicles, because it’s a lot of information that the crazy thing about our job is, is versus a core system. Is the core systems focus on, you know, their system for the ISS and things may not change, unless things are changing rapidly. With with an emergency, we get to do a new mission every time. We get to do a new vehicle, a new mission every time, and learn that vehicle. So we may I myself, I do four vehicles. Dory probably does something similar like that, but we have lots of vehicles, so sometimes you can’t do them all, but it’s very similar across the board. What you need to know about each of them
Kenna Pell
I was gonna ask ROBO so is yours? A little bit more is yours nuance between the different agencies, between Canadian Space Agency and NASA. Do you have to go get trained up in Canada their mission control center?
Alyssa Saenz
So all of the training flight controllers, NASA and CSA, we get the same training. And in fact, the Canadian flight controllers will come down to Houston for months or even years at a time to get their flight controller training. I only get to go to Canada every now and then. I was there a few weeks ago, actually, for some training initiatives as well, but unfortunately, we don’t get to go up there as much as they get to come down here. But yeah, we go through, you know, similar training flow, where we are taking classes, doing a lot of studying, doing oral boards, and then, of course, we get to our simulation environments, where our instructors are throwing all types of malfunctions and failures our way, and not just in our own system, but also in other people’s systems, and we have to recognize how that might impact our system or the objective of the day. And I know especially for ROBO and EVA historically, those are the two positions where it does take the longest to become a front room flight controller. So I’ve been here almost seven years now, and I am just now in training for my front room flight control certification, and they’re very complex systems, and I want to make sure I know all the ins and outs before I’m sitting in the front room. So yeah, like I mentioned earlier, I am doing a lot of training right now for my front room flight certification, and it’ll be worth it. But right now, I’m in the deep side of training, but it’s fun and and I know it’s making me a better flight controller and career instructor. At the end of the day,
Kenna Pell
Lucas was not nodding his head at the it takes a while to get front room certified.
Lucas Widner
Melissa mentioned, yes, the task and the system side of EVA are so fundamentally different in how we operate, that you kind of start with one, and then you work your way up. We actually start as instructors instead of flight controllers, so we learn how to train the crew, because it turns out that’s a really good way to figure out, if you know the knowledge is to train other people and to do it absolutely so. And we’ll have experienced instructors and flight controllers with us as we start that training to make sure that the crew members get the training that they need. Because we don’t always nail it right away, believe it or not, but once we get some practice being instructor, figuring out all of the really good skills that the astronauts have to have, that’s when we start getting into the flight control side, designing our own space walks and really focusing on specific missions. And once we do that as our back room positions either task or systems, and get a lot of experience doing that, then we start to cross train and learn the other side of the house. And once you’re good enough in that you can then move to the front room there. So for our group, it is closer to eight to 10 years of being in this group before you get to be in the front room, which does take a long time. But again, they’re very different and really, really important things that we want to make sure, like Alyssa said, that we really know all those little details and that we can make those real time decisions quickly.
Dorothy Tomayko
I think that the common thread is that we all went to school and got technical degrees, but then we come here and we learn something very different or only somewhat related. You know, no one goes to school to learn how to teach people to fly the Canada Arm two, right? And so even if you learn, for example, in school about trajectories, it’s very uncommon to learn it from a relative perspective of where is one vehicle compared to another vehicle when they’re both moving differently. And so we kind of assume that when people come in, we’re going to have to teach them all those skills. And so as long as they are good at learning technical content, they don’t have to come in with it. We can give it to them, but it does take time.
Kenna Pell
That was the perfect segue I was going to ask, how, what steps for an inspiring or aspiring flight controller would you recommend they take to prepare for any sort of role like this? You mentioned you might get a technical degree, but you’re not going to learn how to, you know, work the Robotic arm or support an EVA, until you really get here, but through education, internships and other opportunities, what would you recommend for folks to get here in your spots?
Dorothy Tomayko
I think obviously you have to have the ability to learn and understand technical content, and that’s what getting a technical degree shows us, that you can learn the material you learn how to learn while you’re in college. But I think the hardest part after that is the soft skills, is the being able to communicate, is being able to see the big picture. It doesn’t matter how much you know, if you can’t tell other people what you know and you can’t make them understand what you know. And so that’s a lot of what our generic training is about. ISE was mentioning that we train on a vehicle that doesn’t fly anymore, but we’re teaching you how to be a flight controller. We’re teaching you how to look and put the pieces together, and how to talk to ROBO about their system, and when to call ISE and how to work together, and when one person takes over, and and the idea of sometimes you’re the leader and sometimes you’re the support, and that ebb and flow, and that all requires a lot of soft skills that don’t always get that specific training in college, and so that’s a lot of really having to jump in and dive in and experience it to learn those things.
Kenna Pell
I was going to ask. Do you all have any words of wisdom on those types of skills, soft skills, or how to succeed in a high pressure environment and making decisions quick? Do you have any words of wisdom on that
Alyssa Saenz
I always suggest that people try to do things that maybe they’re not super comfortable with. So for me, I don’t think I was a great communicator or a great speaker in college, so that was something I an organization. I forced myself to do was be a tour guide at A&M, and I think that gave me great skills that I use every day here at my job. I didn’t get those skills, you know, in my engineering classes, maybe we had a presentation or two a semester, but not to the level that I needed when I came to NASA, to have confidence, to be able to speak clearly and concisely. So try to do things that you feel you need to work on, because at the end of the day, like VVO said, right, we’re getting those engineering skills and those science and technical skills in college, but maybe not so much the soft skills on the communication side,
Lucas Widner
yeah, and for EVA, a lot, definitely, a lot of those apply. One of the biggest hurdles, as we kind of talked earlier, was we jump in as instructors, and we’re teaching astronauts very early in our careers here, and that kind of moment of, holy cow, how am I going to get this crazy, experienced person to listen to me, you know, and hear what I have to say. And how am I actually going to help them? So that hurdle is an interesting one, and one of the biggest pieces of advice I got for that was you just have to get them to trust you, because you’re not going to know everything, but if they ask a question that you don’t know the answer to saying, I don’t know, but this is where I’ll find out, and I’ll get you that answer instead of guessing. Because a lot of times in college, you’re incentivized to give your best guess and just put your best effort out, even when you aren’t confident in that. But if you tell an astronaut something very confidently and then it turns out you were wrong. They’re not going to trust you anymore after that. So if you show them, hey, I know where my limits are, and I will still get you what you need to know without my limits being higher, right? That lets them trust you and then still be able to receive and learn from you, even though you’re so early in in your learning process yourself,
Kenna Pell
These are great examples, even for every day not training to become a flight controller, like all of you, ISE did you have any words of wisdom?
Lisa Harris Redmond
I think a critical skill that people don’t come out of college with, that they need to learn is listening and being able to function and doing other things while listening. On console, we hear a lot of voices, a lot of conversations, and we’re probably holding them at the same time, and we have to be able to listen to one conversation while still paying attention to another one, while maybe listening for the crew to call down. And then everybody stops, but at the same time, you’re taking notes and you’re also researching this failure at the same time. And so multitasking and listening and learning how to hear all the things that are going around you really pushes you towards situational awareness, and that is a critical skill for everything you do on console. If you cannot parse out everything that’s going on around you and stay focused on the task at hand, you’re going to struggle in this job. And so we can see that pretty early in some of our flight controllers whether they can do that or not.
Dorothy Tomayko
I think the other thing too is that you come out of college wanting to show people what you know, and you get exams, and you’re looking at test scores and whatever else, but space flight is a team sport, and so kind of understanding the concept that you don’t want to try to impress people, and you will naturally by not doing that. So when you’re doing your job well, and you’re filling in in a support role when you need to, and you’re standing up and taking a leadership role when you need to, and you’re saying with confidence what you know and with honesty what you don’t know, you impress people without ever thinking about yourself, and I think that is a big part in making the team work and in kind of changing your mindset when you move from college to doing flight control.
Kenna Pell
Thanks. well, VVO, ISE, EVA and ROBO, I think we are just about out of time. Thank you so much for joining the podcast today.
All
Thank you. Thank you.
Kenna Pell
Thanks for sticking around. I hope you learned something new today. This is the fifth in a series of podcasts we’re recording that highlight the roles of all the different consoles in the International Space Station mission control. Check out our previous episodes to learn more about ISS control, communications, crew health, and schedule and inventory, and be on the lookout for the final mission control centric episode coming soon.
Our full collection of episodes is on nasa.gov/podcasts. You can also find the many other wonderful podcasts we have across the agency. On social media we’re on the NASA Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook, X and Instagram. Use #askNASA on your favorite platform to submit your idea or ask a question. Just be sure to mention it’s for Houston We Have a Podcast.
This interview was recorded on December 17, 2024. Thanks to Dane Turner, Will Flato, Daniel Tohill, Courtney Beasley and Dominique Crespo. Special thanks to Chelsey Ballarte, Jaden Jennings, and flight director Paul Konyha for helping us plan and set up these interviews. And of course, thanks again to Dorrie Tomayko, Lisa Harris Redmond, Lucas Widner, and Alyssa Saenz for taking the time to come on the show.
Give us a rating and feedback on whatever platform you’re listening to us on, and tell us what you think of our podcast. We’ll be back next week.