ISS gets communications upgrade, new crew preps for arrival
During the past week, the Expedition 47 crew of the International Space Station (ISS) performed a number of tasks upgrading the communication system of the orbiting outpost for the eventual arrival of commercial crew vehicles sometime next year.
ISS Commander Tim Kopra, with the help of British astronaut Tim Peake, started working on the Common Communications for Visiting Vehicles (C2V2) upgrade last week. Once finished, the equipment will form a communications link to the outpost specifically for Boeing’s CST-100 and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.
ISS Commander Tim Kopra works on an experiment in the Microgravity Science Glovebox. Photo Credit: NASA
C2V2 will operate in both an S-Band radio frequency as well as a hard-line connection. According to NASA, the system will be so secure, reliable communications with commercial crew and other visiting vehicles will be available for all phases of rendezvous, docking, and mated operations.
The system will involve equipment installed both on visiting vehicles and the station itself. The latter part is what the two Tims started working on last week.
On Monday, March 7, Peake gathered the hardware into the Destiny lab and with help from Kopra, they routed C2V2 1553, Joint Station Lab (JSL), and Ethernet cables. In the days that followed, they continued to review and gather tools for further installations.
On March 10, the duo completed coldplate installation, Internal Thermal Control System (ITCS) umbilical re-routing, and temperature sensor installation before installing the two communication units on Friday.
The crew will check the health and status of the system no-earlier-than March 28, and a complete checkout of all the equipment is slated to occur at a later date.
All of this comes a week after three crew members returned to Earth on March 1 and a week before a new trio launches on March 18.
Russian cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka along with NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams will launch to the 400-ton outpost in the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft at 5:26 p.m. EDT (21:26 GMT). The three will rendezvous and dock with the space station about six hours later. Once hatches open, the Expedition 47 crew compliment will increase to six people.
The new trio have already arrived at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the launch site for all Soyuz spacecraft, and began final fit checks of their suits and seat liners.
The six-month flight should see Williams overtake Scott Kelly, who just returned home from space on his year-long mission, as the NASA astronaut with the most cumulative time on orbit. Kelly spent a total of 520 days over four missions, whereas Williams will have accumulated 534 days over four missions.
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, left, and NASA astronaut Jeff Williams inspect their Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft during what is called a final vehicle “fit check”. Photo Credit: Victor Zelentsov / NASA
Derek Richardson
Derek Richardson has a degree in mass media, with an emphasis in contemporary journalism, from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. While at Washburn, he was the managing editor of the student run newspaper, the Washburn Review. He also has a website about human spaceflight called Orbital Velocity. You can find him on twitter @TheSpaceWriter.
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