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>> Hi, welcome
to the International Space Station Flight Control room.
It was a really exciting night last night.
We had Expedition 38 ending with the departure
of that Soyuz TMA-10 and with the 3 crew members aboard.
Were you able to watch the landing?
>> Yes, I had the kid up at home watching.
>> Great. Well, with the departure
of the Expedition 38 crew
that kicks off the Expedition 39 mission.
And here with me today, we have the space station program hazard
plan for science on Expedition 39,
and so here with today I have Yuri Guinard-Ramirez.
I said that correctly, right?
>> Yes.
>> Good. And she is the Expedition 39 increment lead
scientist and so she is going to talk to us a little
about what science activities we are going to be doing.
>> Okay, thank you very much.
Essentially we are very excited, this increment pair,
to start kick off and continue
with the research we have started.
One of the focus areas for this increment will be a lot
of the external platforms.
So we continue to attach to the International Space Station.
And one of the unique vantage points
for utilizing the Space Station for external viewing is,
of course, its location, its ability for different platforms
to access it on a much lower cost than they would have
to if they had to incur a launch in,
and all of those pieces separately.
And its ability to both monitor Earth and continue
to collect data of, on Earth sciences as well as a window
to the rest of the Universe.
So for that we have, during this expedition SpaceX 3 is currently
planned to launch in a few days.
It will be delivering 2 additions per instruments
to Space Station.
One of them is H[Inaudible]
which will allow high definition view of the Earth.
And [Inaudible] is to test cosmic impact on the cameras
and figure out how we can further that technology.
>> Yes.
>> The other external platform that is coming
up with SpaceX 3 , its OPALS
and this is a pretty interesting device which is going
to continue to advance our understanding
on communication via laser.
And essentially from JPL there will be a beacon
that will be sent when the space station is scheduled to pass
over and it will lock in with the OPALS device
and the OPALS device will send a video
down via laser communication.
And that hopefully will advance our understanding and ability
to communicate a lot more data in an essentially faster time.
>> Right. So, so we are kind of talking about some
of the science activities that we will be looking
at outside the complex.
But real quickly, let's just back up a little bit and explain
to me what goes into the planning, like,
being the increment lead, you know, you are assigned,
this is your, this is going to be your mission and what kind
of science, how do you go about, you know?
What are the priorities and what things?
We are going ahead and begin.
>> Well, we start off with the planning
of a research complement, if you would, for an increment pair,
in this case 39 and 40 will go together.
And we start that process, roughly 12 to 18 months
in advance, collecting inputs from the various scientists.
This is a multi-lateral effort
with U.S. [inaudible] partners involved as well.
And all of that comes together, there is a special group
that puts all that plan together and looks
at all the different resources that you need,
including the [inaudible] power, up mass, down mass, cold,
stowage, etcetera and all other different resources
that might be needed for a particular investigation.
They put all of that plan together and as they look
at all that, the priorities are always looked
at from two different perspectives.
You have your long term range goals as well
as your short term, and there are, depending on the resources
that each [inaudible] investigation needs to be looked
at by the ability of the samples and whether
or not you can repeat something if you do not accomplish it
within a certain time period.
And how much of it impacts loss of science
versus just a deferral of a particular data collection.
>> Yes.
>> So all of these different pieces are put together
and we inherit that up to the strategic time frame
to the tactical time frame about, well,
roughly a year about,
approximately before the increment starts.
>> Okay,
>> And then we continue that process as a science matures
and we understand the investigations better,
and vehicles move and adjust.
Those investigations, where the priorities, we work together
with the stakeholders and make sure that we continue
to understand all the different pieces
where impact and priorities.
And then right now,
we are starting now the real time process.
And what we continue is a dialogue on a weekly basis
through the IRT
which essentially convenes multi-laterally as well
as we review every week 4 weeks look ahead.
We start looking at the science complement
and the priorities adjustments as necessary.
>> Okay. Well, a lot of planning goes into this.
So, also, so we talked some about the research that is going
on outside the complex, but the crew members themselves are
actually research subjects.
Can you tell me some of what human research projects
that are, studies that we are doing right now
for Expedition 39 and 40?
>> Certainly.
We have a continuation of a lot of our human research subjects
that have started in previous expeditions.
We continue certainly to make additional collections on,
onto their heaths, which is a big priority
to understand what the visual impairment
from the crew members can be due to microgravity.
So we will continue definitely with those investigations.
We also have continuation of other investigations,
for example, microbiome, which it is pretty neat.
The best way I can think of describing it is you look
at the human body as its own little microcosms if you would.
And all of the different organisms that live
in the human body have to be living in harmony
for your human system to work correctly and in balance
so you do not get sick.
And.
>> That happens here.
>> Exactly, exactly.
And in microgravity it is even heightened, so we are trying
to understand the environment interactions
with that microbiome which is a human being.
So that is a lot of exciting research on that regard.
>> Good.
>> We also have a new investigation during our
increment and this is a [inaudible] feature
investigation that strives to understand
if we can device a good counter measure for muscle atrophy as,
as you know with zero G, muscles suffer from that problem.
And there are look at a new way
to exercise using an electrical stimulus to the muscle
which would be instead of having the bulky exercise devices
that we have today, could we possibly augment
and even become a possible substitute for longer missions
where you have a much smaller set
where you adjust your electrical devices to the exercises
that you will perform.
In this case we are going to [inaudible], to assess how good
that is, and how positive of an effect it has
on the muscle development.
So that is a new exciting human research.
>> Well, thank you so much
for this great overview again on the sciences.
We have continued sciences, we have some new stuff
that is happening and you are officially there.
And congratulations, and the best of the luck to you.
Thanks again so much for coming out today.
>> Thank you very much, Amiko. ------------------------------d5e2122402fb--