Slipped back into our spacesuits for the upcoming port relocation of @SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience on Monday. We'll take a short ride in Dragon to move from the Harmony forward port to the Harmony zenith port in order to make room for our new crewmates!
On Monday, April 5 starting at 6 a.m. EDT, watch the first-ever port relocation for a U.S. commercial spacecraft! Four astronauts will undock their SpaceX Crew Dragon "Resilience" from the International Space Station's Harmony module forward port, and take a short ride to redock at Harmony's zenith, or space-facing port. The autonomous relocation maneuver, taking about 45 minutes, will prepare for the arrival of NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts in late April, and the upcoming delivery of new solar arrays this summer. Astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker of NASA and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will be aboard the spacecraft.
The "broom" (beta-gimble something..) has been removed from PMA-3 and placed in the crew lock, no room in Cygnus. I remember a broom was replaced years ago (by Peggy Whitson I think), is this the failed unit or another spare? I remember mention of that unit being in PMA-3...
Good morning/ evening. Just waking up for the #Crew1 port relocate shift. In a previous tweet I explained why (sometimes capsules need specific parking) , now let's talk the actual event tonight.
The whole @Space_Station crew will wake up on time at 0600 UTC as on any day. Amidst the normal breakfast routine, @Astro_illini will put away his sleeping station as the ship returns from "bedroom" to "spaceship". Control panel displays will be activated and configured. The crew will pull ISS emergency equipment out of Dragon - it doesn't necessarily need to make the ride and can be put back at the end of the day. Dragon has its own free- flight emergency equipment. Shannon and @Astro_Soichi will put on their @SpaceX suits in #ISS while @Astro_illini and @AstroVicGlover finalize cabin prep - just a bit easier to do it in different rooms. Then we close the hatch with all 4 inside and start to depressurize the docking tube ("vestibule") While that's happening the last two crewmembers will get suited and we'll do leak checks on the docking system and the suits. Then it's time to go! The target undock time is 1025z, but it's not like we're trying to hit a landing target in the near term. If we're late, it's not a huge deal: a luxury that I don't usually get in dynamic ops.Resilience will undock and fly straight out to beyond 60m while it looks to reestablish navigation brains by watching #ISS. It'll come back to 60m and then the cool stuff happens.With a command from the crew (or ground, but the crew will probably do it) Dragon will start a journey from the front axis to the zenith axis, keeping 60m+ distance. Meanwhile in Houston my team will be moving #ISS from undock attitude to docking attitude. A small 2° maneuver. And we're doing this all while some yahoo is flying a Dragon in front of all our communication antennas, so don't be surprised if video is spotty. If you see good video tonight, it's because my comm/pointing team is the best in the biz Dragon will mosey over to 60m on the zenith docking axis. From then on in there's no change from a normal docking. We're even using the normal docking flight rules at this point. Assuming a nominal docking (45-60 minutes after undock) , the crew will get out of their suits, and have lunch (brought over from ISS) as we repressurize the vestibule. Then we can open the hatch. If for some reason the docking doesn't go well, we still have options. We might be able to try again... either today, or after 24 hours. For the 24 hour case, we'll send Resilience away from #ISS to reduce collision risk while we discuss the anomaly and plan. But for the normal docking we all hope for, the crew will exit resilience, replace the emergency equipment, and have an afternoon of exercise and some science experiments. And hopefully @Astro_illini isn't too confused by his bedroom windows pointing a different direction. Off to work. Go Resilience!
Arrived at the Docking Axis for IDA-3. Approaching to Waypoint 2, 20 meters from Station.
Dragon Resilence re-docking confirmed. Now residing at IDA-3. First ever commercial vehicle port relocation complete.Overview: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/04/dragon-resilience-performs-port-relocation/ - by Chris Gebhardt (@ChrisG_NSF)
