ISS Photography: 100 Million Words

Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineers Max Suraev, Oleg Kotov, T.J. Creamer, and Soichi Noguchi are expected to snap a total of 100,000 images by the end of their mission in Earth orbit.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the Expedition 22 crew aboard the International Space Station is about to complete the generation of 100 million words worth of information. That’s because Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineers Max Suraev, Oleg Kotov, T.J. Creamer, and Soichi Noguchi are expected to snap a total of 100,000 images by the end of their mission in Earth orbit. Williams is setting a record that surpasses his own previous record of 83,856 images taken during Expedition 13 in 2006. “This week we broke my old Exp. 13 record for number of Earth photos,” Williams “tweeted” from the station. “Later, after landing and recovery, I will post some of best.” Among those digital still images is this spectacular nighttime image taken of Houston, Texas, the home of Mission Control and astronaut training, and the hub of the International Space Station Program that unites five space agencies and 15 countries in peaceful exploration and scientific research. Williams and Suraev will end their five-and-a-half-month stay on the station Thursday, when they undock their Soyuz spacecraft and head for a landing in Kazakhstan. They were part of both the Expedition 21 and 22 crews. Kotov, Creamer and Noguchi will stay on orbit, snapping more photos, for two more months before returning home after being part of both the Expedition 22 and 23 crews. All told, space station crews so far have amassed a total of almost 639,000 images. Those images include photos that document life and work aboard the space station, and photos that document the condition of the home planet from its unique perspective 220 miles above Earth. Their efforts are part of a larger collection that began with Earth observations photos during the Gemini Program of the 1960s. Many of the images are used in scientific research about the Earth, its climate, its resources and the effects humans are having on both.

The recent STS-130 space shuttle mission delivered a new observation deck known as the cupola that offers the largest window ever flown on a spacecraft, and the upcoming STS-131 shuttle mission to the station will deliver the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF), which will provide a new facility dedicated to multi- and hyper-spectral remote sensing and high resolution Earth observation photography to enhance the use of the best optical-quality window ever flown in space, in the U.S. Destiny Laboratory. For more information about Earth observations photography, visit the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of the Earth at: http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/

Expedition 22 Commander Jeffrey Williams works with test samples in the Human Research Facility 2 Refrigerated Centrifuge as a part of the Nutritional Status Assessment experiment in the International Space Station's Columbus laboratory. Credit: NASA

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Crew Members Prep for Undocking, Future Arrivals

Expedition 22 Commander Jeff Williams and Soyuz Commander Max Suraev are scheduled to land in the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft March 18 in Kazakhstan.

Image above: Expedition 22 Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi performs maintenance on the cooling loops in the U.S. spacesuits housed in the International Space Station’s Quest airlock. Credit: NASA TV

Soaring high over the Earth in the International Space Station, the astronauts and cosmonauts of the Expedition 22 crew began a new week Monday, the final week in space for two of their number. Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev will depart the station Thursday aboard the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft. They will undock from the orbiting complex and take a three-and-a-half-hour ride that will culminate in a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan early that morning. Williams and Suraev began their final week in orbit by testing the Soyuz spacecraft’s motion control system and recharging the satellite telephone they will carry with them in the unlikely event that they land off course in the barren landing region and need to contact search and recovery forces. They also spent three hours going over procedures for their homeward flight with specialists on the ground. As members of the Expedition 21 and 22 crews, Williams and Suraev will have spent 169 days in space. Including his time on the Expedition 13 and STS-101 crews, this will give Williams a total of 362 days in space, placing him fourth on the all-time U.S. list of space travelers behind Peggy Whitson with 377 days, Mike Foale with 374 and Mike Fincke with 366. Williams will be 26th on the all-time endurance list for all space travelers. Expedition 22 Flight Engineers Soichi Noguchi, T.J. Creamer and Oleg Kotov will continue their stay on the station becoming the new Expedition 23 crew. Kotov will become the new station commander when the departing Williams enters the Soyuz vehicle and closes the hatch. On April 4, Expedition 23 will expand to a six-member crew. Arriving in the Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft will be new station crew members Alexander Skvortsov, Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko. On April 7, space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to arrive for a thirteen day mission to supply the station with new science racks and ammonia tanks. STS-131 will feature three spacewalks and the delivery of the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module. In preparation for the joint spacewalks to be performed during STS-131, Creamer and Noguchi packed up equipment for Discovery to return to Earth and Noguchi performed maintenance on the cooling loops in the U.S. spacesuits housed in the station’s Quest airlock. Controllers on the ground operated Canadarm2, the station’s robotic arm, to remove the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator, known as Dextre, from the Mobile Base System (MBS) on the complex’s truss structure. Tuesday they will move it to the outside of the Destiny laboratory in order to make the MBS available for use during STS-131.

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Chopper Crash Test a Smash Hit

The second crash test of a small lightweight helicopter at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., was a smashing success, literally -- just as engineers had predicted."Three, two, one, release," said the technician on the loudspeaker at the Landing and Impact Research Facility. With that countdown the helicopter smacked hard into the concrete. Its skid gear collapsed, its windscreen cracked open and its occupants lurched forward violently, suffering potentially spine-crushing injuries according to internal data recorders. The crash test was all in the name of research to try to make helicopters safer."The goal of any research program that has an element of impact dynamics is to develop an understanding of the crash response of the vehicle," said Karen Jackson, an aerospace engineer who oversaw the test. "Once we understand that response we can look at ways to improve the crash performance."In December 2009 researchers dropped the same MD-500 at a similar angle from the same height of 35 feet (10.7 m). Inside were the same instruments that collected 160 channels of data and the same four crash test dummies. Three of the dummies were full bodies and one was a special torso model equipped with simulated internal organs. Technicians set up the same cameras to record the impact from inside and outside the helicopter. › Dec. 2009 Test

The test conditions on both days were the same too, simulating what would be a relatively severe but survivable helicopter crash. The flight path angle was about 33 degrees and the combined forward and vertical speeds were about 48 feet per second or 33 miles per hour (53.1 kph).In the first test the MD-500 skidded to a stop, with very little damage to the helicopter or its silent occupants, because its underside was outfitted with an expandable honeycomb cushion called a deployable energy absorber."It's made of Kevlar and has a unique flexible hinge design that allows the honeycomb to be packaged and remain flat until needed," said Sotiris Kellas, the Langley engineer who created the idea as a way to cushion the next generation of astronaut-carrying space capsules, but realized it could be used in other ways.

The MD-500 before and after the drop test. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

The force of the impact shattered the MD-500's windscreen. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

The more recent drop on March 10, 2010 involved just the helicopter. No new technology was attached. That was the point. Engineers wanted to determine exactly how efficient the deployable energy absorber had been in the earlier test and how much it might help reduce occupant injuries. So they dropped the same helicopter in the same way and measured and recorded the same conditions with the same instruments."We were fortunate enough that the helicopter survived so well the first time that we could use it again," said engineer Martin Annett.There will be no third crash test for this helicopter. It was too damaged. Researchers say the "g" forces the MD-500 experienced more than tripled those recorded in the previous test. But that doesn't mean the research is over. Engineers have gigabytes of data to analyze to confirm exactly what impact the new honeycomb cushion technology might have for helicopters in the future.The drop tests were conducted by the Subsonic Rotary Wing Project of NASA's Fundamental Aeronautics Program, and funded by the agency's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate in Washington.

Kathy BarnstorffNASA Langley Research Center

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