LIKE A FAMILY UP THERE

Planning on the ground keeps the International Space Station family on orbit.

BY ERIC TEGLER

The “International” in International Space Station (ISS) isn’t just a convenient descriptive handle. The space station has been a multilateral effort, relying on all of its constituent partners to stay aloft.

Perhaps the most familiar example of this is the shift to sole source transport of ISS crew to the station. When the United States ceased flying the space shuttle in 2011, the international community would have had no crew access to the space station without Russian Soyuz spacecraft and rockets.

That the availability of those rockets/vehicles to American, European, Japanese, and other space station partners was undiminished despite geopolitical tensions on the ground is proof that the most durable aspect of the station isn’t its hardware, software, or even science: It is the will of people from different nations to work together for a greater purpose.

Nine crew members gather for a group portrait in the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory in November 2013, documenting the first time since October 2009 that nine people had resided on the station without the presence of a space shuttle. Clockwise from top right are EuropeanSpace Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, Expedition 37 flight engineers; Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, Expedition 37 commander; Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy, and NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio, Expedition 38 flight engineers; Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, Expedition 38 commander; and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata and NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins, Expedition 38 flight engineers. Crews aboard the space station are usually split equally between Russian and American complements, where the “American” half is more accurately described as “non-Russian,” as it typically includes personnel from NASA’s Canadian, European, and Japanese partner agencies.

That will has endured throughout the life of the orbiting laboratory, as much a product of the values of the respective space station partners as of the strictures of space.

“We share resources across the ISS for the benefit of everybody,” says NASA ISS Program Manager Joel Montalbano. “To me, that’s the biggest benefit of the International Space Station. It’s like a family up there.”

MULTIPLE ELEMENTS, SPLIT 50-50

At first glance, the organization of station partners looks complex. NASA itself refers to the International Space Station enterprise as “the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.” The orbital outpost is the largest space station ever constructed, and it has been visited by astronauts from 19 countries and counting.

But while the decision-making onboard and in support of the space station is decidedly collaborative, it is also focused among relatively few players. At the government level, it’s even more simple. Fifty percent of the ultimate decision-making lies with Russia and 50 percent with the United States.

That reality is reflected aboard the station, where crews typically are split equally between Russian and American complements. Even though there’s essentially a Russian half and an American half of the station physically and organizationally, “you have to look at [the American half] as non-Russian. The U.S. [contingent] consists of the European, Japanese, and the Canadian contributions,” Montalbano said.

Indeed, the American half comprises NASA’s contributions as well as those of its space station partners: Europe’s European Space Agency (ESA), Canada’s Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and Japan’s Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Despite the absence of nationalities besides American and Russian on the station in the first half of 2020, there is often at least one crewmember from the partner agencies and sometimes crewmembers of other nationalities. In the fall of 2019, there were nine people aboard the orbiting laboratory, as crews overlapped for a week at the end of September and beginning of October.

Among them was Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, the first person from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to fly into space. He joined European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano as one of two non-American/non-Russian crew- members. The largest population ever on the space station was in 2009, when there were 13 people on board.

Astronauts of various nationalities are really the faces of partnership on the station, but they represent a much larger population of international operations crews; multiple launch vehicles; globally distributed launch, operations, training, engineering, and development facilities; communications networks; and the international scientific research community.

These are the partners who make the space station work in practice. One of the reasons they’ve been able to work so well together, Montalbano affirms, is that their respective coordination and problem-solving is generally confined to the technical or scientific level.

By staying outside the politics of their respective governments, participating space station space agencies focus on working with each other to make the station safe, habitable, and productive.

SHARING THE LOAD

In the United States, space station training, program management, and mission control are done at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is home to the Payload Operations Center, which links earthbound researchers and scientists from around the world with their experiments and astronauts aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Ames Research Center, south of San Francisco, California, assesses and contributes to science and experimental projects on the station, including currently ongoing microbial tracking studies of space station crew members. NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, supports key flight hardware, developing and operating the station’s Electrical Power System, Plasma Contactor Unit, and Photovoltaic Thermal Control System, among others. Glenn also provides space station environmental analysis and investigates propulsion system safety.

When SpaceX’s Crew Dragon launched in late May 2020, launch control at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida returned to overseeing crewed flights to the space station from the United States.

The Russian complement to Kennedy Space Center is Roscosmos’ Russian Launch Control at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. From July 2011 until SpaceX’s DM-2 mission in May 2020, every crewed flight to the space station launched from Baikonur. Russian mission control for the space station, sometimes called Mission Control Moscow, is centered at Korolev, near Moscow, and functions similarly to mission control at Johnson Space Center. Training of Russian cosmonauts for the space station takes place at the Gagarin Research & Test Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside of Moscow.

North of the U.S. border at the Canadian Space Agency’s headquarters in Saint-Hubert, Quebec, Canada, control of and training for the space station’s Mobile Servicing System (MSS) is undertaken. An automated system that moves equipment around the station, services instruments and payloads, and is used for external maintenance, the MSS is best known for its robotic arm, commonly referred to as the “Canada Arm” or Canadarm.

Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons participates in Canadarm2 robotics training at CSA headquarters in Saint-Hubert, Quebec.

In Tsukuba, Japan, mission control for JAXA’s Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) is exercised. JEM is the largest single space station module, a pressurized laboratory in which up to four astronauts can perform experiments. H-II Launch Control at Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan is the secondary launch control site for JAXA’s H-II Transfer Vehicle unmanned orbital carrier, which can deliver up to 6 tons of goods to the space station in orbit and dispose of materials and equipment from the station.

The H-II TransferVehicle 2 (Kounotori 2) is pictured during media day at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Tanegashima Space Center, Kagoshima Prefecture,Japan, on Nov. 25, 2010.

The European Space Research and Technology Center is the ESA’s main technology test and development arm, located in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The ESA’s Columbus Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, operates the ESA’s Columbus laboratory and coordinates European experiments. The European Astronaut Center, located near Cologne, Germany, manages astronaut selection and training for space station missions, as well as medical support and surveillance. ESA also maintains an Ariane launch site in Kourou, French Guiana.

Germany, is responsible for command and control of the Columbus laboratory’s systems and for coordinating European research projects aboard the space station.

Together, these space agencies and field centers keep the mechanics of the station running smoothly. They provide logistics and training, and they have a voice in crucial mission and experiment planning.

WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER

Almost every activity, every daily evolution on the space station is planned. Plans may cover something as mundane as the crew schedule, as exciting as an extravehicular activity or spacewalk, or as vital as emergency response.

Among the most thoroughly planned evolutions are the research and experimental activities conducted on board by space station international participants.

Before a research project ever gets to the orbiting laboratory, it’s coordinated among NASA and its partner space agencies. Montalbano explains that the process for new research projects typically begins two years prior to an experiment reaching the space station. And if you’re wondering whether different partners have proposed doing the same or similar experiments, you’re right. It’s happened a number of times.

Expedition 52 flight engineer Randy Bresnik of NASA is seen inside the Soyuz simulator during his final Soyuz qualification exam on July 7, 2017, at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in StarCity, Russia.

NASA and its partners try to iron out any duplication of effort early on. If a principal investigator in Japan is considering developing capability X and an investigator in Europe, Canada, or the United States is considering the same capability, station managers bring the investigators together to see if one partner can work one portion of the project while the second investigator concentrates on a different aspect.

“For example, you could have a Japanese principal investigator working on hardware in Japan, an American working on other hardware in the U.S., and in orbit, you could have a European actually doing the experiment,” Montalbano said.

Results and data from coordinated projects are shared across all principal investigators so all benefit. But there are instances in which various space agencies with national priorities will pursue research or an experiment even if it is duplicative. “That happens from time to time,” Montalbano admitted.

More often, planning centers on making sure necessary resources are in place to support an experiment before it is flown. The process includes identifying what sort of hardware will be required on orbit and when it might be transported. With a logistics “tail” at least 250 miles long – the distance back to the Earth’s surface – forgetting to pack anything is potentially debilitating. As the launch date gets closer, more details are confirmed.

“If you have a payload that requires a certain power level or requires two crewmembers versus one crewmember, or different heating levels,” Montalbano said, “all that has to be accounted for and scheduled.”

NASA astronaut Anne McClain checks out Astrobee, a free-flying robotic assistant that could save the crew time by performing routine maintenance duties and providing additional lab monitoring capabilities, on April30, 2019. McClain unpacked the first Astrobee robot – named Bumble – in the Kibo module of the International Space Station and worked with Astrobee’s team at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley to complete an initial series of tests to verify that the robot’s subsystems were working properly.

Space station managers pull together input from all partners in planning a research project. Eight months or so before the launch date, plans for upcoming crew requirements are refined.

“There has to be extensive coordination across all the international partners to make sure that when an experiment is planned, we have the resources and capability on board to implement it,” Montalbano said.

There are Russian, American, European, and Japanese laboratories aboard the space station, and while they’re separated, they aren’t separate.

“It doesn’t mean that Russians only work in their lab or Europeans in their lab. A European astronaut may work in the Japanese segment, a Japanese in the Russian lab, or a Russian will do work in the U.S. lab,” Montalbano said. “The benefit of the International Space Station is that while we have the [various] distributions, everybody works together.”

One of the fruits of working together is that the principal investigators of an experiment frequently seek input from crewmembers from partner agencies who worked on the project. For example, a NASA astronaut who operated a portion of a Japanese experiment will likely be consulted in the development of published research by the Japanese investigator.

Expedition 60 flight engineer Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency(ESA) is seated inside ESA’s Columbus laboratory module wearing virtual reality goggles exploring how microgravity affects an astronaut’s ability to grip and manipulate objects. NASA can put investigators on the ground in touch with station crewmembers carrying out their experiments for real-time discussions, and through its Astronaut Office, it can connect researchers with crew members who have returned from space so they can ask additional questions or get comments as they refine post-project analyses.

“One of the cooler things is that often we set up the astronauts to talk directly with the principal investigator,” Montalbano affirmed.

If a primary investigator back on Earth sees something a partner agency crewmember is doing in an experiment, they can ask what the astronaut or cosmonaut did to get a certain result. NASA puts investigators in touch in real time so they can talk directly to the crew person who is running the experiment.

As researchers on the ground refine their post-project analyses, they also have the opportunity to reach back through NASA’s Astronaut Office to get in touch with crewmembers who have returned from space to ask additional questions or get comments. The process extends across the partnership.

“If we have questions,” Montalbano said, “we can reach out to the European Space Agency and talk to Luca Parmitano, who just [returned from 201 days in orbit in February 2020], for example.”

INSPIRING AND KEEPING THE BEAT

Millions of global citizens know the space station through its educational outreach efforts. For two decades, astronauts and cosmonauts have spoken to children around the world from their low-Earth orbit perch.

“Our astronauts love to do it. Any time they can talk to a classroom and explain what we do on orbit, how we work together, the challenges we have operating in space – identifying the successes and problems – it pays dividends.”

But space station crewmembers don’t just address classrooms full of kids from the countries from which they came. They impart the same enthusiasm and information regardless of where the audience is located.

“There have been times where we’ve had U.S astronauts talking to Russian schoolchildren, to schoolchildren in Europe, Japan, and Canada, absolutely,” Montalbano said. The other space station partners do the same.

NASA astronauts, from left, Joe Acaba, Mark Vande Hei, and Scott Tingle talk to high school students and teachers who linked up to the International Space Station during a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) event from Boise State University in Boise, Idaho, in February 2018. Space station crewmembers often speak about their work on the station with students on Earth, regardless of where in the world those students’ classrooms may be.

While offering inspiration to the young, the space station has been just about the only game in town for human spaceflight over the last decade. Montalbano acknowledged that when NASA retired the space shuttle, it picked up the intensity of its support of the space station. Keeping the beat with respect to a human presence in space across an international partnership has yielded considerable published research, notable experiments, and advanced scientific understanding. It has also kept people looking outward.

“It’s like a magnet,” Montalbano said. “The work we do on ISS draws people from across the globe.”

Interest in spaceflight in India has risen to the level that the subcontinent expects to fly its own astronauts soon. Australia is taking steps to become a bigger spaceflight player, and the Johnson Space Center has been collaborating with the Mexican Space Agency.

“They’re not going to be developing a human spaceflight rocket any time soon,” Montalbano said, “but they’re learning and taking what we do on the International Space Station and using it to inspire people in their country.”

A flight suit prototype for the Indian Space Research Organization displayed at the 6th Bangalore Space Expo, held Sept. 6-8, 2018. Different countries around the world are taking steps to become more involved in spaceflight; India expects to fly its own astronauts in the near future.

Given all that’s gone on in the world in the 20 years since the first crew inhabited the orbiting laboratory, do people express surprise that the space station exemplifies international cooperation in a way that even the United Nations can’t match?

“There are people who are surprised,” the station’s program manager said. “Eventually the space station will go away, but for years to come, people will be writing about the ISS and how we worked together. It’s a model.”