number 12, march 2003 on station The Newsletter of the Directorate of Human Spaceflight http://www.esa.int/spaceflight in this issue Columbia Aftermath for ESA foreword Jörg Feustel-Büechl Columbia Aftermath for ESA 1 ESA Director of Human Spaceflight Jörg Feustel-Büechl The Columbia accident has been a tremendous shock for the commercialisation whole space community, and the loss of the seven astronauts An Eye for Columbus 4 in such tragic circumstances touches us all in the global Manfred Krischke, Maurizio Belingheri space-faring community. Indeed, the shock is being felt at &Gianfranco Gianfiglio every level of space activity. For ESA, and particularly our engineers and scientists involved in STS-107, it was an mission planning intensely grave event as they had been closely cooperating Odissea: Operations and 6 with the Columbia astronauts. Europe, in having a significant Ground Segment 600 kg of payloads on this mission, was heavily involved with Aldo Petrivelli & Thierry Lefort crew training in Houston and mission operations. Indeed, the whole crew visited ESTEC in May 2001 as part of their payload health familiarisation training programme. Medical Support for Odissea 11 Of the seven ESA payload investigations, three lost the Frits de Jong biological and medical data samples that were being returned for ground analysis, so there will be no results from that icaps/impf research.This is a particular regret as the crew performed The ICAPS/IMPF Laboratory 14 these experiments impeccably during the mission. Roland Seurig et al. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), created by the NASA Administrator immediately after the accident, future space has yet to reach a firm conclusion but there is still some time Towards the Future 17 to go before the final report is delivered from the 60-day Pia Mitschdoerfer investigation.We hope the root cause of the tragedy is clarified in that final CAIB report. education The Internationa Space Station (ISS) is severely affected by The ISS Education Programme 20 the Columbia loss. Directly after the accident, ESA took the Sylvie Ijsselstein necessary steps to ensure that we are taking the right decisions with our ISS Partners.With almost daily meetings, iss we continue to investigate what steps and activities are Listening in to the Cosmonauts 22 needed in order to hold the Station in a safe condition.The Christiaan M. van den Berg Shuttle fleet, typically used to transport large elements for ISS assembly, is also a crucial logistics carrier for resupplying the Station.This route is obviously closed for a while, so it was necessary to assess alternative measures to get the Station into a safe mode and to maintain it there.Two major decisions have already been taken within that context.The first concerned using the Soyuz for crew exchange: the Directorate of Human Spaceflight Direction des Vols Habité foreword The STS-107 crew during training at ESTEC in May 2001.From left:William McCool,Mike Anderson, Laurel Clark, Rick Husband, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla and David Brown. Soyuz-TMA2 taxi mission on 26 April will carry supply needs have been satisfied on the two new long-stay crewmembers to the manifest. Station and the present crew of three will The planning for reassigning Christer return in the Soyuz currently docked at the Fugelsang’s flight opportunity on STS-116, Station.This means that the flights for ESA previously scheduled for July 2003, will be astronauts Pedro Duque and André Kuipers delayed until the Shuttle launches restart and a have to be delayed by 6 months. In other revised launch and assembly schedule is words, Pedro will make his flight in October determined. 2003 and André in April 2004.The Spanish and We are not yet sure of the delays that we Dutch governments have been very must endure for the launch of Columbus, constructive and flexible in supporting ESA in previously planned for October 2004.There will rearranging these flights, and both in all probability be some delays before Shuttle governments are to be congratulated for their flights resume but whether they will translate cooperation and solidarity in this process. directly into slippage of the Columbus launch Reducing the permanent crew to two schedule remains to be determined.We will requires the supplies and resources to be know only when the post-Columbia Shuttle properly controlled and managed. So the manifest is issued. second decision is to increase the Progress For the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), flight rate – it is expected that these will rise the situation is reversed.There is now increased from three to four in 2003, and from four to five in 2004.The financial arrangements for these resupply flights still have to be settled with our Russian counterparts. As a direct consequence of the Orbiter fleet being grounded, the Station assembly sequence has been put on hold. A positive effect of this is to provide the resident crew on Station with more time for research.We are currently very busy searching for opportunities within the existing infrastructure and 2-person crew. The Progress flights will be able to deliver research equipment to the Station once the 2 on Station no. 12, march 2003 pressure to deliver earlier so that it can be used ESA astronaut assignments and collateral duties. for resupply operations.This is very much Jean-François Clervoy (F) Les Mureaux: ATV operations support welcomed by the Partners in order to provide a Frank De Winne (B) ESTEC: supporting the Module Project Division for more robust Station scenario overall. From our Columbus side, we are determined to meet the original Pedro Duque (E) ISS Advanced Training. Star City: crew training for September 2004 launch date and possibly Soyuz-TMA 3 flight scheduled for October 2003 even improve on it. Reinhold Ewald (D) ESTEC: ISS and Soyuz operations support Léopold Eyharts (F) ISS Advanced Training. JSC: ISS Branch: Systems, Software; Shuttle Branch: Payload General Support Programme Action Plan Computer Independently of the Columbia accident, we Christer Fuglesang (S) JSC: crew training for STS-116/12A.1 ISS Assembly Flight continue with the implementation of the Umberto Guidoni (I) ESTEC: ESA payloads Programme Action Plan that was agreed with André Kuipers (NL) Star City: crew training for Soyuz-TMA 4 flight April 2004 our Partners at the 6 December 2002 Heads of Paolo Nespoli (I) ISS Advanced Training. JSC: Shuttle Branch, Cape Agency meeting in Tokyo.This 2003 Plan Crusader requires a number of actions in order to bring Claude Nicollier (CH) JSC: EVA Branch member, support work includes European hardware EVA interfaces and working as the Station back to its original capabilities.Two Astronaut Instructor for robotics and EVA major issues need to be resolved: settling the Philippe Perrin (F) Toulouse Space Centre: ATV operations support detailed configuration of the Station and, Thomas Reiter (D) ISS Advanced Training. Soyuz-TMA Return Commander secondly, the agreements within the Training. EAC: support to the Columbus project Hans Schlegel (D) JSC: Capcom Branch Partnership to accomplish that. Some progress Gerhard Thiele (D) EAC: Acting MSM-AA has already been made with the provision by Michel Tognini (F) JSC: ISS Branch, responsible for Russian interfaces NASA of both the Life Support System and Roberto Vittori (I) JSC: Shuttle Branch, working on Vehicle System Node-3 to the Station. A further major issue, Upgrade the provision of sufficient Soyuz spacecraft ATV: Automated Transfer Vehicle. JSC: NASA Johnson Space Center. between 2006 and 2010, still needs to be agreed. 2010 is the end date because it marks intent not to slow down as a consequence of the entry of the NASA Orbital Space Plane into Columbia but to follow our original path at service as a crew return vehicle. I personally least until we know the final consequences of hope that we will have a workable baseline the accident. solution by mid-2003 for procurement of an The Columbus Control Centre, to be located additional two Soyuz vehicles per year, thereby at Oberpfaffenhofen (D), is a key element of our allowing a resident crew of six from 2006 to overall programme, as is the ATV Control 2010. Centre at Toulouse (F).The development Columbus assembly is proceeding as contracts for these centres are now close to planned, with good progress being made. ATV conclusion.The Columbus Control Centre development is also going positively.The ATV contract with DLR will be signed by ESA on Critical Design Review (CDR) recently began 31 March and the ATV Control Centre contract and is planned to finish with the CDR Board with CNES also around that date. Meeting in June 2003. Finally, we continue to follow the Astronaut ESA’s utilisation preparation of the Station Policy that also actively supports national has, largely, been undisturbed by the Columbia short-duration flights with the Russians.We are events.We are continuing as planned with the looking forward to having a European development of our research facilities. It is our astronaut aboard the Columbus 1E Shuttle launch. Our first astronaut for a full increment of several months will arrive shortly after Columbus is attached to the Station.We are about to nominate the prime and back-up candidates for that opportunity so that they can begin formal training.The Astronaut Policy also provides opportunities for those European astronauts currently not in active training to provide technical support to the various Left: the appearance of projects.This not only bridges the gaps Columbus at Astrium in Bremen (D),as of 7 March. between flights but also helps to build the astronauts’ stock of expertise and is highly Right: testing the ATV on Station appreciated by the technical teams. ■ avionics. 3 on Station no.