Preflight Interview: Janet Kavandi

The STS-104 Crew Interviews with Janet Kavandi, Mission Specialist.

Q: Janet, before we talk about the mission that you're preparing to fly, I want to talk a little about you first. Tell me why it is that you wanted to become an astronaut.

A. Well, as a child, the most interesting subject to me always in school was space, and I loved space since I was a very small child. My father and I used to sit outside at night and look at the stars and talk about the first people that were going into space. And that was just a subject that always intrigued me, and not just space flight but everything to do with, you know, space, the universe, the planets, everything. So, it was not until the shuttle program began, however, that I first began to think that it was possible for me to try to achieve the goal of becoming an astronaut because that's, of course, when they first started taking women into the program. So, probably in the late '70s, early '80s is when I seriously started thinking about the possibility of becoming an astronaut.

And that would have been during the time that you were in college and were making some career decisions anyway, right?

That's correct. Because I wanted, I enjoyed science and math very much, and so that just followed as a natural progression, to explore this as a possibility for a career goal.

There are as many, probably, different career paths to astronaut as there are astronauts. Tell us what yours is-how did you get here?

Well, I enjoyed chemistry very much in school, so I studied that and that became my major in college. And I went to get a Ph.D., eventually, in chemistry. However, I didn't want to focus solely on chemistry, I wanted to make it an interdisciplinary-type thesis when I worked on my doctoral research. So I found a professor that was willing to work with me, and we found a topic that NASA was sponsoring, where I would use aerodynamics combined with chemistry to do a research process, and that all worked out very well. So I think that helped maybe get me an edge in with NASA and how NASA works and working with NASA personnel so that when I continued my application process for the astronaut position, I hope that that was something that helped me get just that much further in my quest for this goal. But it was just continuing my education, going through the master's process, the Ph.D. process. I worked at Boeing in Seattle, where I worked in aerospace power systems, and so all of that added together with the different types of doctoral research, I guess that's what put it all together for me to make me a good candidate.

You look back across that time, who are the people that you think were, or maybe still are, the most influential in the decisions that you made that got you here?

I think the most influential person was my father, who's now deceased, but even after he was deceased, the time that he spent with me as a child stayed with me through my whole life. And the words he said to me as a child about "when" you go to college, not "if" you go to college, and "when" you do something great in life, and, you know, it was just a given that, it was a mindset that he put in my head that you can and will succeed in life, and it's not a question of "if," it's a matter of "when" you achieve certain goals in your life. So, I think I can attribute 90% of my success to his memory and his inspiration. Also these days, of course, my family is very inspirational to me, and they're very, very supportive. My husband and my two children put up with a lot of strange schedules and so on and so forth and a lot of time that we have to spend here training and away training, and without their support, it would be impossible as well.

Your first space shuttle mission was the last shuttle mission to visit the Mir space station back in 1998. Has the, having had the experience of training for and completing a space station mission had a benefit for you and your crewmates now as you prepare for this space station mission?

I definitely think so. The training is very similar, in fact, to my first mission as far as the rendezvous…the rendezvous are very, very similar to what we'll do this time. Docking with a space station, I remember, was the most interesting and exciting part of that mission -- you know, seeing the speck of light that looked like a star grow larger and larger until there it was, feet from you, and you're docking with a huge structure that has living beings on board and actually opening hatches and going across and meeting those people. It was just a wonderful experience, and I'm hoping this one will be every bit as wonderful as that one; I'm sure it will.

Let's talk about what you've got in store for you. Summarize the goals of STS-104, if you would -- what is this mission designed to do?

Primarily the objective of our mission, 104, is to take an international Joint Airlock to the space station and attach it, along with the gas tanks that will provide the air for the space station and the airlock for repressurization. Now, this airlock is to be used for EVA from the space station so it can accommodate both the American EVA suits, EMUs, and the Russian Orlan suits. So, to that point until we get that up there, the American EMUs have no way of going outside.

OK. Let's break it down into the hardware pieces first, and then we'll talk about what you're going to do. Can you describe this Joint Airlock for us, what its major components are, where it goes on the station, the basic stuff?

Well, it's a relatively large piece of hardware that -- some people say it looks like a genie bottle. It has a crew compartment where the space walking crewmembers will go into and depressurize that segment before they go out and go on to their space walk; prior to that there is another area of the airlock where the crewmembers get dressed and they do all the preparatory work. And so there's a larger diameter section and a smaller diameter section. In addition -- that's our first goal, is to attach that to the Node, the starboard side of the Node, on the space station; after that, on the second EVA, crewmembers will go out and help the space station robotic arm pick up the gas tanks, which contain either nitrogen or oxygen, and attach those to the airlock, and then those will be plumbed into the space station itself to supply air to the station or the airlock for repressurization.

So it's these gas tanks, which are also coming up with you on Atlantis, they're a part of the operation of this airlock.

Definitely, yes.They're the air for the repressurization of the airlock when the crewmembers come back inside.

In a general sense, then, for this new hardware on the space station, are there differences that those of us who watch you fly these missions, that we would notice in the way space walks are done from this element as opposed to from the shuttle airlock?

Probably not once the people go outside, and of course they're going out a different location now, they'll be going out the starboard of the space station itself. The tools will all be located on that side of the airlock out there, so they will initiate the space walks from that location. But once they're outside, of course, as you know, you can go anywhere on the space station to whatever type of job is required. So there shouldn't be a lot of differences as far as once you're out the door.

One of the things that I have heard discussed, though, is the fact that this might allow hatches between the shuttle and the station, during docked operations, to remain open throughout that period of time instead of the opening and closed periods that we've seen so far.

That part is true. As far as where, whereas the shuttle crew and the ISS crew are now isolated for these EVAs, because we do, the crewmembers have to go out through an airlock which also serves as the hatchway between the shuttle and the space station -- of course those have to be closed during a space walk -- but after we are able to go out through the airlock on the space station, that hatch can now be open between the U.S. or the shuttle and the U.S. Laboratory, and so we have access now to the crewmembers on ISS if we need to talk to them or provide tools for one another, we can do that.

Things can, supplies can be moved on, back and forth.

Exactly.

In order for any of this to be accomplished, one of the first things that you and your crewmates have to do is bring the shuttle together with the station on orbit. Talk us through what happens as the shuttle rendezvous with and docks to the station, and tell me what part you play as part of the team on the shuttle.

Well, the whole rendezvous timeline is a well-choreographed piece of work that people have been working on for years. It's a very similar timeline through any type of rendezvous but especially with the Mir space station, which I had mentioned earlier we trained on. It's just a series of burns that are done; the shuttle burns its engines so that it sequences itself, its orbit with the space station exactly, so that we match the exact orbit, the exact speed, and the exact point in space all at the same time. So it's a very precise series of burns -- they have to be done at a precise time, at a precise feet per second burn, and all these different things, so it's very critical that nothing be missed during this process. And we practice it so often, and we practice with of course, the worst-case conditions where we lose all these tools and that tool and you know, of course simulators are designed to make things very hard on us so that when we get up in space, hopefully, everything seems much easier, but we are prepared for things that would fail and that we can still continue the mission. And so after the training with Mir and the training with the process we're going through now, I feel very confident that we won't have any trouble with the rendezvous.

The Commander gets to fly the shuttle on the rendezvous -- what will the rest of you be doing?

Everybody's got their own role. I'm primarily focusing on the actual docking mechanism at contact and I also have the checklist in keeping everybody coordinating during the process…as an MS2 or Flight Engineer, that's sort of my role in the rendezvous as well. We have someone doing the handheld laser marks, telling how far we are from the station and how fast we're approaching; we have the Pilot [who] sits up in the Commander's seat and he's doing burns and things from that seat, so everybody's got a job, everybody's focused, and we've got people to take pictures, we've got the IMAX cameras going so it's actually a lot of work for five people, but we've got it all coordinated so I think everything will go well.

After you complete that, dock to the station and open the hatches and say hello to the Expedition 2 crew, you've got a couple of busy hours scheduled for yourselves with what the timeline calls a "dry run" of the airlock installation. Obviously that's something that one would imagine that you've trained for on the ground; what's the purpose of having this rehearsal on orbit?

Well, on the ground, of course, you have, the best thing we have are the simulators, which are quite good. And we have virtual reality simulators, we have actual hardware that we're able to fly on the ground, but until you get up there and you see the actual lighting conditions and the actual position of the arm which may or may not be what the simulators say it will be: it could be a few inches off, and, in our case, a few inches is critical. Since we have two robotic arms moving at the same time -- this'll be the first time we have two robotic arms moving at the same time -- clearances are critical, the coordination of who's moving where when, to avoid conflict being in the same space at the same time everything is critical as to how it's done, when it's done, and the communication between myself and the operator on the space station, Susan Helms, is perfect, so that everything will go smoothly.

And just to clarify -- that communication is important because Susan Helms will be operating the station's new arm and you will be operating the shuttle's arm during these operations, and from your position on the aft flight deck you will be able to see virtually none of what you're doing here. Talk about the different tools that are involved to assist both you and Susan Helms in knowing where that arm is and not running into the station or each other.

Yes, actually, initially I didn't see how a person could operate a robotic arm that large without being able to see it, but since we've been training on it so much, and with all the different camera views we have, I've learned to be able to do it virtually without any view out the windows. And Susan is even worse off than we are in that she has no windows to look outside of for her operation, so we're completely dependent on camera views and knowing which camera we're looking at, which angle it's giving us, and distance… as far as we can gather from these cameras the distance we are from structure. So it's, again, a very well-choreographed mission here in this aspect of: when she will move, when I will move, how I will move around her. She's got the major task, the most important task, of lifting the airlock out of the payload bay with the space station arm, and taking it around to the starboard side of the Node, where the shuttle arm cannot reach, so it has to be done by the space station. And, we want to give her all the room that she needs, and all the time that she needs, to be able to do this task. We have OSVS, which is the Space Vision System, to assist her in docking, and if that does not work out for some reason, if the lighting is bad, we have our EVA crewmembers that will be outside that can help guide her in, or GCA, we call that, [to] help her guide the airlock to the Node and dock it within very precise alignment requirements.

Let's talk about what happens during that first EVA. Your crewmates, Mike Gernhardt and Jim Reilly, will be in the suits and going outside, and you'll be operating the arm. Talk us through the events of that first EVA and give us a word picture of what's going to happen.

Well, after our guys, the shuttle guys, go out the door I will be providing the ride around the payload bay for Jim Reilly on the first day. And he will get on the arm and go back to the airlock and install some of the parts of the airlock that couldn't be installed on the ground because of conflicts with the payload bay doors, so he's going to install some guideposts and "towel bars" that they call which are required for the installation onto the Node…and also for the gas tanks to be mated onto the airlock once it's installed. And so, primarily we're taking him around, he can install these items, they're taking covers off of the airlock, Mike Gernhardt and Jim, and we're bringing those back and stowing those away. After Jim gets off the arm, we'll go around, take the shuttle arm around and provide a view of the unberthing for Susan, an additional view, with the end effector camera on the space shuttle arm. Once she's unberthed we'll also go up and provide her a SVS, or a Space Vision System, solution for the docking itself, so we'll move the arm back up to the Node so that the solution for the Space Vision System, which is a backup to her own solution, will be available should she require it for docking.

And, to make sure that I understand, when you say a Space Vision System "solution," that's that view from the camera is another contributor to that system's figuring out where things actually are?

Yes, it's a very precise measurement system, provided by the Canadians that allow three-dimensional positioning within very tight tolerances for the docking.

Now, still during the EVA Susan will have docked the airlock, but Jim and Mike will still be outside and there's still more work to do.

Quite a bit more work to do. Actually, for a short period of time after they've uncovered, taken the covers off of the airlock, they will go inside the space shuttle airlock and attach back up to space shuttle power, and they're going to save their energy and power for a while because they do have more tasks to do. So, until the airlock is docked they will be remaining inside there, and once it's docked they will come back up and connect the umbilicals and the rest of the connections that need to be made for the airlock before the EVA is complete. However, if Susan, for whatever reason, needed the guidance of the EVA crewmembers for docking -- for instance, if the lighting was so bad or SVS did not work -- then the crewmembers would go out earlier and be available for the verbal guidance of the airlock onto the mating system.

A little this way, a little that way?

Exactly.

The real heavy lifting, as we've described, is being done by the station's new robotic arm. Can you tell us how the unique capabilities of this new Canadian contribution are going to be utilized during this operation?

Yes, as I mentioned earlier the space station arm is able to reach down into the payload bay of the shuttle and remove this airlock. It's a very simple actual maneuver once she's unberthed the airlock; it's just a rotation around the elbow of the space station arm to put this airlock in position for mating. The space shuttle arm is not; it's at its reach limit for taking anything of that size and putting it on the starboard side of the space station. We're able to take the MPLM and mate that because it's on either the nadir or the port side and the shuttle arm can reach that, but it cannot reach around to the starboard side. So, it's essential that the space station arm be able to do this task.

Once that, all that day is completed, there are two days in your schedule after the first space walk for work scheduled inside the shuttle/station complex. What sorts of jobs are involved here? What, how do they contribute to the overall installation?

Well, once the airlock is docked, it has to be made available for human use. So, we have to connect all the air, the fluid lines, the electrical connections, everything that's necessary to keep, or to make this airlock habitable. So first of all, one of the major tasks is to make sure that it holds pressure once it's docked, so we do an overnight leak check to make sure the seals are all very well sealed and it won't leak. And we'll also make part of the fluid line connections to keep the water loops going through the station, or the airlock, so that it won't freeze, the water in the lines won't freeze, which, of course, is critical. Another method of doing that is to connect heaters, and so there is some discussion right now going on as to whether we will connect the heaters or connect the fluid lines first, but in either case the objective is not to freeze the water in the lines on the airlock. So, that is one of the very first things that we'll have to do once it's docked.

Two days' worth of work inside in order to start to get this hardware prepared leads to another day's work outside to get it prepared. The second space walk, and you're running the arm again as a camera and an elevator, right?

Exactly. The second EVA, we'll be giving Mike Gernhardt the ride on the arm, and he's going to be unlashing the gas tanks, the oxygen/nitrogen tanks, from the payload bay, one at a time, of the shuttle, and then riding the arm up to the location where they will be installed. And we drop him off and he joins Jim Reilly out there, around the airlock in the various locations where the tanks will be installed, and again, provide assistance to Susan. Actually they will be taking a handoff from Susan. She will be providing the airlock to the -- or, not the airlock, the gas tanks -- to them, and they will take the handoff and manually mate the gas tanks onto the airlock.

So, the station arm grabs this piece of hardware out of the payload bay and hands it off…

Hands it off…

…to two space walkers?

…to two space walkers who then install the gas tanks.

And, on this second space walk, they're to do that twice. They're to do that twice.

The, one oxygen and one nitrogen tank is the goal, so that we have at least one of each type of gas so that if we, for some reason, could not remain on, docked to station and we had to come home early, at least they would have one nitrogen and one oxygen tank on board.

Which sounds like we're getting it another step that's important getting it prepared to be used.

Of course, yes. We need the gas tanks now because anytime you do a space walk you have to repressurize the volume that you evacuated to space with gas, so the oxygen and the nitrogen provide that supply of air back to the airlock for repressurization.

What are the jobs that are involved on the work inside, then, between the second and third space walks?

Primarily it's the installation of…it's called an ORCA, and that's the piece of hardware that will be used to be able to repressurize these gas tanks from the shuttle. When the shuttle visits the space station we will have extra oxygen and nitrogen that we can pressurize these tanks with. And there's a piece of hardware that allows us to pressurize the tanks up to the higher pressure that the station stores them at.

All of this is in preparation for a third space walk which if all goes as scheduled will be the first ever from the International Space Station's new Joint Airlock. What's the thinking behind having two shuttle astronauts make this, you know, this space walk out of this piece of hardware?

I think primarily that we want to ensure that we have done the job right, that we have installed the airlock, we have installed the gas tanks, it is a functional airlock, and that should there be any problem with the airlock or its functioning we want to find that out before we leave, and perhaps we could do something before we leave -- we might have tools or some capability that we could assist in fixing any problem that might arise. And at least if we're not able to fix it the ground is aware of the problem now, early, so that on the next shuttle mission we could bring up anything, any kind of tools that were required, or software or whatever it might be that we at least know of it in advance, and the space station crew wouldn't be caught off guard on their first space walk up there alone.

So, that leaves us with the third space walk -- what are the jobs that are scheduled there?

The third space walk will be to take the two remaining tanks that are in the payload bay, which is an additional oxygen and an additional nitrogen tank, and put them back on the airlock. It's very similar to EVA 2, the only difference being that we will start from the airlock so the robotic arm will be up in position at the top of the stack to pick up Mike Gernhardt, bring him down, he will unlatch the nitrogen and/or oxygen tank in the payload bay, and then follow them back up to attach them to the airlock.

And your jobs here will be…

Very similar to the job on EVA 2, where Mike will be riding on the arm up and down the stack between unlatching the tanks and then taking him back up so that he can attach the tanks to the airlock.

Your schedule is pretty packed, because the very day after you've finished the third space walk is the day that you're supposed to leave -- finish a full week's worth of docked operations there. If you could, describe for us what happens after you close the hatches for the final time; what happens as the shuttle says its goodbye?

I think it's one of the saddest times, when you have to say goodbye to the space station crew. But what our objective is, we'll back away from the space station, and the Pilot, Charlie Hobaugh, will be doing a flyaround of the space station sort of checking out the entire space station at that point in the assembly stage, getting a good view of the airlock and the tanks which are the new additions to the family of the ISS, and just getting a nice view and flyaround of the space station before we then depart and head off on our own trajectory before we deorbit.

Will you be working the Orbiter Docking System again -- you're the one that lets go?

I'm the one that, yes, pushes the button to undock us, and from that point on it'll be in Charlie's hand to fly us around.

The completion of your mission also marks the completion of Phase 2 of the International Space Station program, the well, the "some assembly still required" phase would be over and the scientific research phase would be ready to begin. Tell me, from your point of view, how you think the science that is to be conducted on the International Space Station is going to make a contribution, whether it's on the ground or future exploration or whatnot -- how is that going to help, and how do you feel about being a part of making it happen?

Well, being a scientist I am very excited about the use of a laboratory in space, being able to contribute to things that we don't even fully realize we are able to learn in space yet. Of course we have things that we have planned -- a lot of the protein crystal growth that people know about very well, the Earth observation platforms, space observation, all types of microgravity science. But, as you know and many people know, a lot of the greatest discoveries that have ever been made have been made without being planned to be discovered…sort of as a side effect of something else that was planned. So we don't know what we'll learn in every aspect, but we do have some things that were planned, that we have planned to experiment on and of course we have all types of universities that want to put experiments on board. A lot of cancer research is going on -- actually a continuation of an experiment that I flew on STS-91, the mission to the Mir space station. We have an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer that will eventually go up on space station which measures back to the beginning of time antimatter in space and all types of cosmic particles; they have the capability of detecting those particles and theorizing about the beginnings of time and the universe and how everything happened. So it's a very broad range of science that will be done on board, and these kinds of experiments cannot be done anywhere else, under any other type of circumstance. So like I said, being a scientist myself and knowing what capabilities we're providing to humankind with the space station is very exciting; I'm very proud of it.