The International Space Station - Iss Crew Training

The ISS Expedition crews undergo extensive training at facilities around the world. Figure 5.6 shows the locations of these training facilities, including:

• Johnson Space Center (JSC)—JSC is located in Houston, Texas. This is the primary training center for Expedition crews. It features laboratories, classrooms, and simulators to prepare crewmembers for living and working aboard the ISS.
• Kennedy Space Center (KSC)—KSC is located on Merritt Island, Florida, adjacent to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This is the launch site for U.S. shuttle flights. Cargo bound for the ISS is packed and loaded here. Crewmembers familiarize themselves FIGURE 5.5 The lower extremity monitoring suit "Artist's Impression of the Lower Extremity Monitoring Suit (LEMS)," in NASA Facts: Foot/Ground Reaction Forces during Spaceflight, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, September 2003, http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/science/experiments/fact_foot.html (accessed January 31, 2006)with ISS components and practice launch procedures at KSC.
• Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center—This center is located in a Russian town called Zvezdny Gorodok (better known as Star City). The training facilities are similar to those at JSC, including classrooms, laboratories, and simulators. Expedition crewmembers learn about the Russian modules of the ISS and train for spacewalks in the Center's Hydrolab (a forty-foot-deep pool).
• Baikonur Cosmodrome—The Cosmodrome is located in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. This is the launch site for Russian Soyuz flights to the station. Expedition crews scheduled to fly aboard Soyuz spacecraft practice launch procedures at the Cosmodrome.
• Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Headquarters—The CSA headquarters is located in Saint-Hubert, Quebec. Canadian companies built the remote manipulator system (the robotic arm known as Canadarm2) used on the ISS. Expedition crewmembers undergo robotics training at this location to familiarize themselves with the Canadarm2.

Expedition crewmembers undergo approximately eighteen months of rigorous training. Training time is divided among various tasks. The single task receiving the most time is extravehicular activity (EVA) or space-walking.

ISS assembly requires a lot of EVA. By the time assembly is completed, ISS crewmembers will have performed twice as much EVA as was performed during all spaceflight conducted between 1958 and 1998.

Space walking is not possible without a pressurized spacesuit. Figure 5.7 shows the many components that make up a typical American spacesuit. The suit is designed to protect space walkers from the wide temperature variations encountered outside the station. These temperatures FIGURE 5.6 Training locations for space expedition crewmembers "Expedition Crewmembers in Training Travel around the World to Prepare for Their Missions Long before They Begin Orbiting It," in Behind the Scenes: Training Locations, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, August 14, 2003, http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/training/isstraining/locations.html (accessed January 31, 2006)range from "250° Fahrenheit in the shade to 250° Fahrenheit in the sun. Temperature protection is provided by the liquid cooling and ventilation garment (LCVG). This is a tight-fitting garment that fits against a crewmember's body. It contains a network of tubing in which water circulates to maintain a constant body temperature.

Another important component of the spacesuit is the primary life support module (PLSM). The PLSM is worn like a backpack and includes oxygen tanks, water tanks, electrical power, ventilating fans, and scrubbers and filters to remove carbon dioxide. Fresh oxygen flows from the PLSM into the back of the helmet. Exhaled water vapor and carbon dioxide are carried through ductwork in the LCVG and returned to the PLSM.

Each space walker also wears a secondary oxygen pack that can provide up to thirty minutes of oxygen if something goes wrong with the PLSM.

During spacewalks crewmembers are usually tethered to the station structure to prevent them from floating away. American astronauts also wear mini jetpacks called SAFER units. SAFER stands for simplified aid for extravehicular activity rescue. An astronaut that becomes untethered for some reason could turn on the SAFER unit and use its jets to return to the station.

FIGURE 5.7 Spacesuit enhancements for the International Space Station "Workclothes for Orbit: Spacesuit Enhancements for the International Space Station," in NASA Facts: International Space Station Assembly: A Construction Site in Orbit, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, June 1999, http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/spacenews/factsheets/pdfs/assembly.pdf (accessed January 31, 2006)