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hello and welcome to mission control

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houston we're going to have a special

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conversation with one of the flight

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controllers that works here in the

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international space station flight

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control room this is amy brzezinski

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thank you for joining us amy

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amy works with the onboard data and

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interfaces networks so she's called an

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odin flight controller so amy can you

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tell us a little bit about what you do

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as a flight controller

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to monitor and command the space station

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specifically for the cdh system for the

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command and data handling system as an

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odin

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i'm responsible for monitoring over 48

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computers on the space station that

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control the space station and all its

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systems

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part of my job i'm also responsible for

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uplinking software to support the

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activities that we do on the space

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station and also i'm responsible for

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moving data around the space station and

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bringing it also

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certain pieces of data down to the

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ground through special data dumps

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okay and the computers set up onboard

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the space station is sort of

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everybody thinks of your desktop

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computer that you have but also the

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space station is run by computers so

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those are a lot of the computers that

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you're monitoring right right so it's a

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little bit different from what you think

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of at home as your computer um they're

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actually like boxes

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and there's over like i said over 45 of

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them and then the crew interface is with

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them through laptops

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so when you look at look at a computer

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sometimes we call them mdms it's a

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multiplexer demultiplexer it's our fancy

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way of saying computer it just looks

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like a box but there's a lot going on in

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there and that's what we use to to keep

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station running and keep all the systems

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and running and get all the data to the

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ground so that other flight control

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flight controllers can monitor their

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systems

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okay and what sort of background do you

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have that helps you get ready to be able

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to do this work in mission control

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well for one i'm a aeronautical and

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astronautical engineer um

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and uh so i had a basic

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engineering education whereby i learned

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all the principles of engineering and a

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little bit about computers and then when

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i got here is really when a lot of my

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training really began um i went through

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two and a half years of training to

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become an odin i learned all about the

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computer systems that we have on board

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the networks we use 1553b networks which

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is kind of an older but very robust

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network used in a lot of

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space and uh and aircraft systems

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and then i also learned how to be a

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flight controller and how to how to

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communicate effectively with the rest of

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the team be able to listen to multiple

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conversations be able to solve problems

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as they come up based on my knowledge of

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the system so i think

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my background education definitely

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helped me

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in engineering and then when i came here

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i really learned a lot about computers

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and the system on board

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is your position in mission control this

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similar setup as many of them where they

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have a back room where you learn how to

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do specific areas and then come to work

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in the front room we call it that's

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right so when i started out i started

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out as what we call a raven

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and that's the back room for odin and

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it's the resource avionics networks

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engineer we use a couple letters there

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to make raven and uh

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i started out there and that's the

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backroom is really the systems expert so

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i learned to become an expert in the

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system and understand how all the

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different software and the different

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computers work because it's all

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different um and uh and understand how

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to do the job and then eventually i

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moved into the front room and kind of

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learned more about the other systems and

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how the computer system interfaces with

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them so that i could better address

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failures with the team

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and you were the lead of odin for

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expedition 30. so what does that entail

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it's it's a lot of fun to be the lead

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for an expedition we had a really great

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crew and this was a very exciting time

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for our system because we actually

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upgraded a lot of the computers both

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from a hardware

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standpoint and from a software

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standpoint

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we upgraded seven of the computers with

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the new processor cards that have flash

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memory on them

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so that's a pretty big upgrade we have a

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lot more processing power now

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and then on top of that we actually

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changed the software on a little under

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almost half of the computers on board

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so it was very dynamic time and it was

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me and of course a lot of people that i

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work with in my group as a team were

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able to execute these activities and the

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crew was essential i mean they are our

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our hands and our eyes up there um so

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they actually performed the the card

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changes they had to take out the

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computers

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open them up take out the old card put

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the new card put it back into the rack

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and then we would activate the computer

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and check it out so

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it was very dynamic

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and we're very excited about about the

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changes and

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and it was a very very good increment

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and all of it went well it sounds like

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all of it very very well yes lots of

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planning and very good execution very

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smooth

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and it from what i understand it's the

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most transitions that we've done in a

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certain time period that's right so

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in total we had on the u.s computers

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four software transitions and that's a

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record for the most ever done in an

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increment

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we also transitioned beyond the

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computers a piece of equipment that does

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routing of fiber optic type data fast

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high data rate

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information so we had to change that as

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well and then our international partners

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also had some notable software

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transitions

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the russians did a transition with their

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computers and upgraded the software and

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our esa friends did as well so lots of

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new software

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and that all is to help the the space

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station stay up to speed and work better

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and support all of the research that

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we're

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focusing on now right that's absolutely

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right one of the one of the big changes

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we made is we um we did that hardware

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change out for our payload computers and

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that increases the ability to do more

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science and get more science data on

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stations so the science community and

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the research community was very excited

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about that

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and will you be watching the landing

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overnight i will i'm actually i'm

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actually planning on coming in here and

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uh watching it from our viewing room

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very excited there's a couple of us from

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the increment that are coming in and

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we're used to working in the middle of

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the night as flight controllers so

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it'll be very very exciting to see

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dan antonin anatoly come home we're

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looking forward to it

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well thank you and congratulations on a

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successful increment or expedition as we