Hello Folks!
The previous post has a detailed conversation about the communications between “Iris” – (Michael Demel, myself and PI Gilles Clement), “POD” – Payload Operations Director, “Huntsville” – CSA Payload Integrator (Real Palardy) @ – PTOC Payload Training Operations and Control Montreal, Houston Ops (OC – Ops Control – Katie)
Form 1700 GMT – 2011 GMT, I linked in via Skype working with Michael and Gilles on the voice-loop to Huntsville and POD at Mission Control which relays our messages to CapCom who then send the message up to the Astronauts in-orbit.
The initial scheduled time for Iris (1700 GMT) did not occur after which we found out during the DPC (Daily Planning Conference) which opens and concludes the days activities with each center for 10 mins each day. This is where Bob called down and reported that there was an issue with the experiment where 1 ambiguous figure was flickering.
After the DPC, Bob called down and gave us details on the issue. He also noted that he would show the issue on the laptop screen using the station’s cameras, such that it could be transmitted to the ground and Mission Control (MC) could see what he was seeing. We could not see this feed, however we Michael and I continued to troubleshoot, suggesting that a) check screen resolution and changing it if required. Bob checked and noted it was different than what was nominal and proceeded to change and restart.
On the third attempt, both the diamonds and spinning dancer image did not load – at this point we told him that we could proceed without that data and that we would work the problem on the ground here before 2nd inflight session in August. Upon discussion on our Iris team, we have not encountered this phenomenon throughout all our testing and verification opportunities (ground, ASMA, parabolic flights etc).
I must admit, this experience was revealing, in that, we were in the Hot Seat answering to Mission Control and the Astronauts questions, troubleshooting an issue which we had not and could not recreate, and without seeing the actual issue. To place this in context imagine what the crew of the Mercury missons had – there were no manuals. Or what future Lunar and Martian Missions hold. The pace, clarity, scheduling, operations, human and financial efforts, etc etc. I’m quite grateful for the chance to patch in live from 1/2 way across the world to support our Iris experiment. Thank you to the Canadian Space Agency, NASA ISS mission control, all those involved in the operations, and of course Dr. Gilles Clement for the opportunity. Michael did a fantastic job on comm having had only prior basic training and arriving from Europe eariler last night. He will attest as I will – the 3 hours were hectic, dealing with issues that we worked to get solved.
Gnight and God Speed! Thanks for following.
