Figure 1. Some of Thomas Reiter's personal items 'tied down' aboard Mir
The Euromir 95 long-duration mission raised many new crew- support issues for ESA. Previous mission experience indicated the need for increased emphasis on generic tools for astronaut Thomas Reiter. In addition, some possible solutions could be demonstrated to combat Mir's onboard stowage problem.
Overall, the mission considerably increased ESA's operational experience, while the experimental introduction of certain items generated a vast number of 'lessons learned' in the crew-support domain. Further experience in this area would enhance Europe's role in the International Space Station's operational phase.
Euromir 95's planned duration of 135 days far exceeded the experience of any ESA Astronaut. The 30-day Euromir 94 mission had already indicated the need for new tools, unavailable in the Russian system, to help run the onboard programme. Further important feedback from the Euromir 94 debriefings highlighted the problems with stowage aboard the station.
Based on these requirements, we can categorise the support tools provided for Euromir 95 as:
On the basis of lessons learnt from Euromir 94 and the inputs from both Euromir 95 astronauts, a number of off-the-shelf items were purchased for operational onboard support. The following table lists the items, describes their operational usage and suggests improvements where necessary:
Item A B Cn D
Stopwatch x C1
Sunglasses (standard x C2
NASA issue)
Swiss Army Knife x x
0.9 Mechanical pencils x x
+refills and tip eraser
Waterproof marker x x
Space Pen x
Ear plugs (disposable x x
foam type)
Eye mask x x
Mini Maglite (AAA-batt.) x x
Portable MD Player- x
Recorder +power
adapter +folding
headphone (lightweight)
NASA grey duct tape x x
Dictaphone x x
Sailing rope (diam. 3 mm) x
A = used frequently during the flight
B = design excellent, no improvements necessary
C = design good, room for operational optimisation
C1 = have the display show simultaneously the actual time (in
large digits) and stopwatch time
C2 = use denser sunglasses, for greater protection against UV
radiation
D = rarely or not used during the flight.
A fundamental problem faced by any astronaut on Mir is the absence of a proper stowage system. After more than a decade in orbit, Mir's interior could be described as organised chaos. Combined with the usual difficulties of working in microgravity (every-thing silently floats away if not properly fixed or stored), this constitutes a major operational problem for the astronaut (Fig. 1). This subject was specifically addressed at the Euromir 94 debriefings, with the main drawbacks being identified as:
Figure 1. Some of Thomas Reiter's personal items 'tied down'
aboard Mir
Two new operational support tools were designed and developed to help remedy this operational problem: the Mission Stowage Bag and the Crew Vest.
The Mission Stowage Bag (MSB) was developed with two main objectives in mind:
More than 40 experiments were conducted during Euromir 95, filling a whole series of data carriers. Several of them were not planned to be placed in the MSB, either because they were constantly in use within the station or were to be used only once.
Only a portion of the items present in relatively large quantities (60 dictaphone cassettes, 20 35 mm films, 30 Betacam cassettes) were placed in the MSB at any given time:
Specific MSB features included (Fig. 2):
Figure 2. The Mission Stowage Bag (MSB)
The MSB was anchored in Mir's Spektr module and used on a daily basis by Thomas Reiter, to store his private possessions, photographic and computer equipment, consumables such as earplugs and batteries, most of the Betacam cassettes and a few PCMCIA cards. Most of the data carriers were stowed next to their corresponding hardware for operational convenience. Reiter had decided to rescue only the magnetic-optical disk (the central backup medium) in the event of an emergency evacuation. The emergency bag was used as a temporary store for Betacam cassettes and T2 samples.
MSB lessons learnt
This multi-purpose vest was developed to allow its wearer to carry around a wide range of items and to provide temporary storage during experiment work and onboard engineering.
Two lists of requirements were compiled for it in consultation with ESA Astronauts Thomas Reiter and Christer Fuglesang. List 1 specified items with permanent and dedicated positions, whilst list 2 covered all the other items the vest should be able to accommodate.
List 1 List 2 - Pocket calculator - PCMCIA cards - Dictaphone - Sunglasses - Swiss army knife - Floppy disks - Maglite - Betacam cassette - Yellow stickers - Hi8-cassette - Blood/saliva/urine - Flight Data File - sample holders - Small items, such - Pen & pencil as bolts
Specific features of the Vest included (Fig. 3):
Figure 3. Cosmonauts Sergei Avdeev and Yuri Gidzenko and ESA
Astronaut Thomas Reiter wearing their Crew Vests
The three Crew Vests were not delivered to Mir until 20 December 1995 aboard Progress-M 30, by which time Thomas Reiter had been working in space for more than three months. This was a great pity as the astronauts organise themselves and their experiments during the first two weeks of a mission, and it is during this phase, and subsequent periods of Progress unloading, that the Crew Vest would be of greatest use.
Astronaut feedback was notable on the apparently extremely impractical nature of the standard onboard overall: pockets were small and few, with no pockets suitable for items such as pencils and screwdrivers; the short sleeves made them too cold when in the Spektr module, whilst they were too warm when in Mir's core module.
Crew Vest lessons learnt
Figure 4. The Payload and Crew Support Computer (PSCS),
accessories and peripherals with the onboard stowage bag
Along with other similar equipment already aboard Mir, the PCSC laptop computer and accessories (including four hard disks with two configurations) were used by the ESA Astronaut under an ESA/NASA agreement covering the sharing of technology resources for research purposes. By exchanging the main hard disk, the PCSC could be configured either to supporting the experiment programme or to serve as a personal computer for the crew. It could also be attached to NASA's Mir Interface to Payload Systems (MIPS), whereby the MIPS MO disk could be used to make an additional copy of the collected experiment data, which could then be sent back to the ground via Mir's telemetry system.
The PCSC was essentially a commercial IBM 750C ThinkPad laptop, with an 80486 SL Intel processor running at 33 MHz, 12 Mbytes of Random Access Memory (RAM), an exchangeable 340 Mbyte hard disk, a 1.44/2.88 Mbyte disk drive, a 26.7 cm active-matrix display, a Type-III PCMCIA slot, and an integrated TrackPoint pointing device.
The main modifications to the off-the-shelf laptop were the addition of a DC/DC converter, so that it could be powered by Mir's standard 28 VDC supply, and the coating of the various internal boards with a non-conductive film to trap escaping gases and protect the various components against short circuiting by any metallic particles floating in weightlessness.
The basic computer was complemented with several accessories: four exchangeable hard disks, two PCMCIA 260 Mbyte hard disks, four floppy disks, five MO disks of 1.2 Gbyte capacity each, power cable, serial and parallel loopback connectors (for testing the computer) and other small spare parts.
Everything was labelled and each item was packed into labelled Nomex pouches, which had exterior Velcro strips. The pouches were then placed in an aluminium/Nomex stowage container, providing easy access to the computer and the accessories which would remain fixed inside even when the lid was open. The stowage container with all the PCSC items weighed 7 kg and was delivered by Progress-M 28, launched on 20 July 1995.
A pre-mission agreement with NASA allowed the three additional MIPS laptops (also IBM ThinkPad 750C's) already onboard Mir to be configured as part of the PCSC facility. At least two PCSC- configured computers were thus available at all times.
Three PCMCIA hard disks carrying upgrade software and three PCMCIA SRAM cards containing MIPS software were delivered in September 1995 by Soyuz-TM 22. Two more PCMCIA SRAM cards were delivered by Space Shuttle mission STS-74 in November 1995. An additional PCMCIA hard disk with upgrade software and three fresh PCMCIA SRAM cards were uploaded with the Progress flight in December 1995.
STS-74 returned with an MO disk containing all the experiment data collected thus far. A second MO disk and a PCMCIA hard disk were brought back by the crew aboard Soyuz in February 1996. All other exchangeable hard disks and PCMCIA hard disks were returned by STS-76 in March 1996, the ESA laptop remaining behind on Mir for future use.
Software configuration and data handling
Figure 5. Computer hardware and software configuration, with
a schematic indication of the data flow
The 'payload hard disk' was installed in the PCSC, carrying mostly software for supporting the experiments programme. Twelve Life Sciences and Technology experiments used the computer for experiment hardware command and control, data acquisition and data handling. The 'crew hard disk' was installed in a MIPS computer, making it the 'PCSC crew computer', typically used in standalone mode as a personal computer, but it could also be interfaced to MIPS for data downloading and telemetry. This hard disk was notionally divided into three areas: basic configuration; crew software; data buffer.
The basic configuration area essentially contained the Operating System (DOS, Windows), configuration files, software drivers and software utilities. It also contained a simple shell DOS program, provided by NASA, that ran at the end of the booting sequence. This program provided a selectable menu to start Windows 3.1 or to access NASA's software for handling MIPS. While the basic utilities contained tools and batch programs that automated all the tedious and repetitive operations, extreme care was taken to ensure that the astronaut was always aware of the work being performed in background mode by the computer so that he could intervene and correct any problem manually.
The crew software area contained all the software used exclusively by the crew. This was mostly commercial software that could be run under Windows 3.1. In parallel, some experimental software was also run from the crew computer, notably experiment T8, which would record and notify the operator of possible system anomalies due to radiation hits corrupting RAM data.
The data buffer area contained both experiment-generated and personal data. These were also copied into a specific PCMCIA hard disk that was considered to be the Primary Data Storage medium. At the end of the mission, the data buffer area was copied onto a MIPS MO disk as the Secondary Data Storage medium. Both were returned to Earth.
Software packages
The software installed in the
crew hard disk was selected by the crew and basically contained
the same software tools used by the astronauts in their offices
or at home: word processor, electronic spreadsheet, database and
drawing package. They were used mainly for taking notes, writing
reports or letters, reviewing online documentation and making
lists for tracking equipment. Several of these documents
(normally containing up to four or five pages of text) were
exchanged between Mir and the control centre in Kaliningrad. In
addition, an orbital tracking program provided the crew with
real-time information on the ground areas visible from Mir's
observation windows. This was used mainly for photographic
purposes and for supporting public-relations activities.
A simple time-line program called the Crew Activity Organiser System was also provided. This tool, built by the European Astronaut Centre and normally used for displaying training time- lines, was tested in orbit for receiving and displaying the daily activity time-line.
Finally, a graphics package that displayed digitised images allowed the crew members to select their favourites from the 'Ars ad Astra' art collection of original drawings expressly created by artists from all over the world. This package was also used to view family photographs provided by the wives for inclusion on the hard disk without the crew's prior knowledge.
Data telemetry
Despite several glitches, a high
proportion of the experiment data was successfully dispatched to
the ground via MIPS and Mir's telemetry system. This allowed the
experimenters to view their data relatively soon after its
generation (typically 2 3 days) and, when necessary, to take
corrective actions. While the majority of the two-way traffic
concerned the experiments, the ESA Astronaut regularly sent and
received text files (typically in ASCII format). In fact, he
regularly generated reports and messages complementing the
information transferred during the normally short audio and video
connections with Mir. Once received on the ground, the Crew
Interface Co-ordinator would forward the relevant items to the
interested parties and collect and compile the replies to be sent
to Mir. This worked very well and was invaluable in expediting
operations.
Computer lessons learnt
Figure 6. Laptop connected to the Mir Interface Payloads
System (MIPS) during telemetry transmission
The use of the laptop by the ESA Astronaut as a personal and mission-management support tool contributed to the mission's success. For this tool to be effective, however, an informatics environment must be built up for each astronaut as early as possible during mission preparation. This environment has to contain all of the software necessary for satisfying astronaut and mission requirements, plus all available experiment support documentation with ready access.
Euromir 95 served as a demonstration testbed for several elements that will be required for future International Space Station missions. From this point of view, it fully deserved its designation as a 'precursor mission'. Some of the innovations were immediately successful and can be further employed with only minor improvements. In a few cases, the initial designs proved to be less robust than expected under operational conditions and major redesigns will result from the 'lessons learnt'. Overall, however, a great deal of experience was gained that will be invaluable to the Agency in its preparations for future long-duration space missions.
ESA Bulletin Nr. 88.