SPACEWALK LIVE! Http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv Edit/update: I Was Mistaken, Shane Is Preforming The EVA

Space Walks & Garbage: NASA Co-Op #3 Week One

Space Garbage

Familiarized myself with the Inventory and Stowage Officer (ISO) team this week. They are a console position Mission Control that is in charge of managing the inventory and stowage of all US items on board the International Space Station (ISS). ISO prepares products for upcoming real-time operations and coordinates with other consoles regarding stowage plans. ISO is responsible for directing the crew to consolidate, relocate, audit, and unload a visiting vehicle. ISO as well as the Mission Control consoles’ mantra is to distill all information and procedures to make astronaut’s life easier. This is critical because astronauts have to navigate a lot of factors folks on ground don’t have to like; CO2 clustering around their face due to lack of gravity causing drowsiness, homesickness, isolation and general aggregations of communication challenges.

This week we focused on double checking the list of garbage that will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in Japanese JAXA’s HTV6 cargo ship. Tediously we reviewed each item so nothing got thrown away that shouldn’t and items that would stink up the station were not missed.

Spacewalk

Conducted on the job training in Mission Control's support room called MPSR  (Multi-Purpose Support Room, pronounced "mipser") during the Friday the Thirteenth spacewalk. With an official Mission Control headset I followed along the astronauts tasks. Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet spacewalked outside of ISS to update power systems. Upgrading power system of ISS was the overall goal of this month’s suite of Extra Vehicular Activities. Three 428lb Lithium-Ion batteries replaced nickel hydrogen batteries to store power for ISS during this spacewalk. Before the conclusion of the spacewalk engineers in mission control confirmed the batteries’ integration and initial power storage operations.

MPSRs usually use multi-view video with six images of ISS’ exterior and the crew to observe tasks being completed. They listen in on live loops to the Flight Director’s final calls, CAPCOM’s instructions and astronaut’s questions. If necessary MPSR operators can relay to their counterparts in front room Mission Control (FCR-1) information that can be filtered and relayed to Flight.

During the spacewalk there are many glove checks to check for leaks and anomalies. These gloves are impressively engineered to be thick enough to pressurize protect you from space yet gentle enough to allow you to feel space station through them. Astronauts could confirm with Mission Control that batteries were correctly mounted into place by describing drill rotations, torque and light sensor reading on the hand tool.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

Intern at NASA, year round, summer, spring or fall semesters.

Co-Op at NASA (Pathways Internship) and get sworn in as a Civil Servant.

Full-time employment at NASA opportunities!

This week's NASA achievements.

Everything about Mission Control from a Flight Director

These are essential tips for FIRST Robotics teams starting build season this Saturday!

8 Ways to Stay Healthy During Build Season

Three more days until kickoff! You know what this means: pizza, caffeine, and no sleep for 42 days.

However, despite all the jokes we all make about awful diets and bad sleep habits, self-care is something we all need to remember during build season. Here are some tips to stay healthy as we approach a time when our health often, unfortunately, ends up as a low priority.

Reusable water bottles. Water is pretty important for obvious reasons, but multiple bottles of water can be tiring to lug around. Plus, it’s better for the environment than the recyclable water bottles.

Sports drinks in moderation. Although water is always a good go-to when you need to hydrate, if you’ve been sweating a lot, you also need to replenish the electrolytes you lose. Drinks like Powerade and Pocari Sweat are great for those purposes.

Don’t fall asleep in a binder. We all know how it happens: after a long day’s work, you get home, plop in bed, and pass out in grimy clothing. It’s fine. Just make sure you remove your binder if you wear one.

Utilize team sweatshirts and layers. Depending on what part of the world you live in, it can get pretty cold outside, so make sure to bundle up when traveling to and from your team’s shop. If you wear a binder, you can also use sweatshirts and larger clothing to take a break.

Fruit instead of sweets. And most snacks in general. Vitamin C prevents colds, which is extremely important when you spend a lot of time close to people in the winter. It’ll also help prevent breakouts.

Protein bars. Pizza is the solution to almost all your problems most of the time, but if you’re eating it three meals a day, that’s a problem that can’t be solved by more pizza. Protein bars are just one alternative, and a fantastic one at that.

Set an alarm for lunchtime. Speaking of eating three meals a day, you need to make sure you really have three meals a day. It also goes for anything else you need to remember at a certain time, like picking up an object, taking your meds, checking a monitor, etc. This is also useful during competition season, because it’s very easy to forget in the heat of things.

Work out. You don’t necessarily have to do any intense workouts, but doing at least one physically active thing for an hour each week serves as a good distraction from spending so much brainpower on robots every day. It will also help prevent you from passing out at competitions when you run back and forth between the pits and the stands, or when everyone gets up to do the Macarena.

Good luck, and remember: safety and your health come FIRST.

~Staff: Errica 1073

Third spacecraft of NASA's New Frontiers Program trilogy, OSIRIS-REx, launches TODAY SEPTEMBER 8TH to collect asteroid samples. Coverage starts at 3:30pmCT with OSIRIS-REx's mission debrief. Launch at 6:05pmCT. OSIRIS-REx will travel to a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu & bring a small sample back to Earth for study. Is OSIRISREx the beginning of asteroid mining? Protecting Earth from asteroid collisions? Watch history unfold! www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

Week 1 of NASA Co-Op Tour #4 You know it's going to be a good semester when the first person you recognize in the badging office is former NASA Administrator and astronaut Charles Bolden, No matter who you are, NASA's security doesn't falter. I am guessing Bolden was stopping by to check up on Johnson post Hurricane Harvey. Schedules are undeniably out of wack following Harvey. Nonessential astronaut training was rescheduled and "Lessons Learned" meetings are being added to calendars. The International Space Station (ISS) still flew and flight controllers still manned mission control despite the storm.

I am Co-Oping with OSO (Operations Support Officer) pronounced "Oh So", a console in mission control. OSO is responsible for ISS hardware maintenance and ISS hardware training. Engineers in the Mission Evaluation Room (MER), pronounced like "myrrh", brainstorm what on space hardware needs to be repaired. OSO brainstorms how the hardware can be repaired with limited resources safely in low gravity. OSO also provides ample training to new astronauts in preparations for missions. Similar to the other mission control teams I Co-Oped with, OSO has their own console and sits in mission control center. On console OSO is most active when a visiting vehicle docks with ISS, when maintenance is being preformed, and if something off-nominal happens. I will be completing twelve little projects that give me a sampling of the training and maintenance side of OSO. One project that looks particularly interesting requires python scripting for a ISS simulation. This simulation is used to train flight controllers trainees. It teaches trainees what is nominal and abnormal telemetry from space station. Additionally trainees have to figure out how to fix whatever breaks the ISS simulation. The scripts I am writing simulates how day to day astronaut actions change telemetry. These actions include dispensing water for meal time and flushing the toilet. Yes, I am basically writing a space toilet simulator

Rare maintenance occurred this week to fix electronic hardware that was brought inside ISS from a spacewalk this spring. It required opening up hardware that had not been opened since before it was sent to space. I arrived in mission control promptly at 1:30am for a four hour procedure. OSO wrote the procedure that astronauts followed to fix the hardware and the software to test it. Some flight controllers prefer to work in the very early morning, sleep during the day, and enjoy free time in the evening. This week I have been meeting with all of my project points of contacts and reorienting myself to flight operations. 

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

Become a paid intern at NASACo-Op (Pathways Intern) with NASA

Check out what scientist are learning from the Year In Space astronaut twin mission

Learn about space radiation

Read  a fellow NASA Co-Op's blog - Imagine Nat

More on mission control operations during Hurricane Harvey

Intern Week 3: Graveyard Shift

Why am I at NASA at 2am? (Like what, thought that was a SpaceX thing.) Us interns have the graveyard shift to thermo test cameras for the ISS. This means that we are making the cameras really cold and really hot to see if they can withstand conditions in space. The cameras are just really high class HD Nikon cameras in custom housing and 3D printed lenses. The astronauts will use these to show ground what they are working on in space and zoom in on fine details to show damages. We record time and temperatures and the test lead does operational testing to see if the cameras still give back an image. Such a cool experience to assist in testing equipment that will actually go to space. The bottom picture is me next to the thermo test chamber.

The top picture is me in front of a motion/ zero gravity chamber that the astronauts trained in that needed to be decommissioned.

The goober next to me in the Orion mock is Caleb and he has a sick blog: astronomicalwonders

SPACE WALK 7:10am CT tomorrow October 28 on NASA TV UStream: https://t.co/VMWu4QWWf7 Astronaut Kjell & Scott Kelly will be floating outside the International Space Station (ISS) doing stuff. Probably fixing things because poor ISS is almost 15 years old. If you think about how old a dog is when it's 15 that's basically like ISS. Photo by NASA

Since over $20k was raised for space camp scholarships, students can APPLY NOW for a full ride to space camp! This was a result of The Martian novel themed Potato Challenge fundraiser on Minnesota Give to the Max day: http://themarsgeneration.org/scholarships/

Looking Forward to Leadership Conference NCCWSL

Following Memorial Day I will be traveling to DC for NCCWSL, National Conference for College Women Student Leaders, by AAUW (American Association of University Women). AAUW Duluth chapter has given me the awesome opportunity to meet students from around America, represent my engineering discipline and refine my leadership skills.

While Co-Oping at NASA I learned what categories of leadership they look for when hiring branch chiefs, flight directors and even center directors. NASA looks for individuals that can Lead Change, Lead People, are Results Driven, have Business Acumen, can Build Teams and have Discipline Competency. Our center director, Ellen Ochoa, has all of these leadership skills. A leader in a lower position may not have to have business acumen or have weaknesses in two of these categories. With leadership skills identified I have chosen what workshops I should attend...

I Get Knocked Down, but I Get Up Again: Persevering through Life’s Challenges

The Human Side of Collaboration

Be Better: Enhanced Speaking Skills for Women

...including keynote speakers and a trip downtown to learn about advocacy, politics, and policy making from a panel of women who work for senators and representatives on Capitol Hill. I am avoiding sessions that could be replaced by a TEDTalk and sessions presented by business folks that may be there simply to pitch their company - these are all disappointments I have experienced in past conferences.

I am half surprised and half not surprised about how politically charged some of these workshops and lectures are (NCCWSL is hosted in our nation's capitol after all and AAUW uses policy to advance equality). Many leaders in industry do not interface with politics on a daily basis so I hope there is enough relevant content that will truly challenge my understanding of leadership. I want brutal honesty on how I can improve and tools that I can use in industry. I will attend with an open mind.

When I visited the White House in 2013 for a tech related Champions of Change event I advocated for project based learning in schools - reducing standardize testing and implementing measurable projects mirroring challenges in "the real world". During this excursion my primary message will about continuing and growing Earth observation missions. For a final spring semester I wrote about how crucial Earth observation missions are to our environment, safety and economy. I will be sure to post an abridged version here soon. While Earth observation is my primary message I will be sure to also talk about the importance of the "A" in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math), how trade schools are critical to American jobs and manufacturing and last project based learning again.

I will be live blogging during the conference so subscribe via email to get the latest blog posts and follow me on Twitter @KirsiCootie!

Playing golf on the Moon.

In addition to tech stuff I enjoy drawing to! All doodles by me.