NASA’s Space Station Manager Did Not Like The Idea of Legos in Space
Editor’s note: “Suff” = Michael Suffredini, NASA’s International Space Station Program Manager
From: Kerrick, Ginger (JSC-DA811)
Sent: Monday, February 06,201 2 955 PM
To: JSC-DL-MOD-OFC/DIV-CHIEFS; JSC-DL-MOD-ISS-Program-Boards
Subject: OA Staff Significant Notes, Feb 6, 2012
Predecisional – For NASA/MOD Use only
No SSPCB tomorrow. Suff, Kirk. and Dan are all out this week.
Suff summarized the issues with Soyuz #704 and the new launch dates. 28s Undock/Landing delayed to 4/30. 30s Launch delayed to 5/15. 47P Launch moved up to 4/20. 29s Undock/landing delayed to 7/1. 31S Launch delayed to 7/15.
Suff reported that Space X is working to a NET 3/20. We are hoping to set a launch date somewhere around early April. We are going to formalize the launch date on 2/17. Our Orbital folks are going to announce to their shareholders today that their launch will be delayed to September. JAXA also announced that HTV3 is going to be delayed and will provide a new proposed launch date on Wednesday of this week.
OM: They finally got the ISS End of Life Report from our Russian counterparts. It is in translation. The TIM is scheduled for the week of 2/13.
OZ: Reviewing the BEAM Con Ops at the PCB this week
ISS Program Scientist
– Suff inquired about the relevance of performing the Lego experiment onboard from an ISS research priorities perspective. Ms. Robinson explained that Lego is Leland Melvin’s top priority – for education given that Legos are something that children are very familiar with and that can reach tens of thousands of students. Suff asked if the folks at HQ had considered the negative aspects of showcasing Legos in that it may seem we are not utilizing 1SS resources to their fullest capacity. Ms. Robinson explained that she was not aware that people had considered that perspective and would pass this on.
– Nutrition Study Results – Ms. Robinson reported that they have received some interesting results back from the ISS Nutrition study. They looked at testosterone lev& before/during/after flight and found there to be no difference in the levels. As testosterone levels are sometimes an indicator of bone loss, this would seem to indicate that the bone loss incurred in space is a result of mechanical issues, not hormonal. They also looked at folate and B12 levels in the astronauts that have had vision toss due to the ocular pressure issue. They found that both of these levels were lower than astronauts that have not exhibited symptoms of vision loss. Although the medical community still needs to continue to investigate this further, it is a correlation that could help predict when certain astronauts might be more likely to have their vision impacted.
OC: FPWG met last Friday. They have another one this Wednesday. Suff would like to baseline the HTV3 and Russian flights by the end of this week then baseline the others by the end of next week.
MOD:
– Provided Suff a status on the crew loading concerns voiced a few weeks ago and of the actions taken by the Increment team (deleting items off of the Task List and not offering voluntary science) and by the crew (increased reporting of task duration and other details). Overall things are much better but we will continue to monitor.
– Provided a status on the imagery/video downlink backlog and the efforts of the team that Royce Renfrew has been working with to deal with this issue.
– Courtenay McMillan will be providing an outbrief on the Emergency Operations TIM to the SSPCB on 2/21. The team made huge strides in a number of different areas. There are a few areas, though where we will be asking the Program to weigh in on a few risk trades in order to move forward. While discussing this topic, Suff asked MOD to look into options for changing the way we perform Emergency OBTs. Instead of putting the drills on the timeline and giving the crew and ground teams time to prepare, he would like us to look into options where these OBTs are more of a surprise to the team, so that they can practice in a fashion that would better mirror their response to an actual event. I explained that there would be planning challenges associated with that but that we would do his request due diligence, research the pros/cons, and get back with him (Action to Emergency Operations JOP).
OB : Tony Sang will become the Safety Review Panel Chair. Ryan Prouty, his deputy, is currently acting manager for OB6 while Sharon is at HQ. Therefore, Becky Turns will be vacating the Lead MER Manager slot and will be moving into Tony’s slot as acting 082 manager. Rob Adam will take over the Lead MER Manager position on a temporary basis.
