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good morning welcome to the

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international space station flight

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control room where we have with us a

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guest today uh this is dory tomaiko who

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is the lead uh visiting vehicle officer

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for the spacex2 mission that's coming up

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scheduled to launch on march 1st the

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crew is doing some work to get ready for

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that yesterday so we asked dory to come

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in and talk with us a little bit about

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what was going on with those

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preparations and what would uh be

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happening on march 2nd when

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the dragon docks to the space station

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thanks so much for coming dory glad to

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be here okay so let's see i think

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yesterday the crew was practicing with

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robotics is that right that's correct so

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what it what do they need to do to get

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ready

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so we do several different kinds of

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preparation for the crew and on the

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ground as well what the crew was doing

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yesterday is they did two different

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kinds the first one is they were just

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practicing the capture itself so we have

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a simulator called robot which is kind

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of a representation of what they'll use

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the real day when they're actually

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controlling the arm but it's all

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graphics and simulated and so they were

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running that yesterday and they started

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at the capture point which is where

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dragon will stop its approach it's about

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10 meters away from iss and the crew

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takes it from there and takes the arm in

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and goes and captures so they do a lot

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of runs like that to practice both

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nominal runs and then we have some runs

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where maybe dragon is moving a little

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bit or where

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they have to come in from kind of an

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offset where dragon isn't set up quite

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where it was expected to be

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yesterday was a nominal run and then we

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did a 30 meter run which is a lot

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farther out and that involves all three

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crew members and so you've got one crew

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member who is in charge of watching the

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vehicle another crew member who's

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running the arm and then a third crew

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member who's kind of there to help

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overall especially in case of anomalies

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or malfunctions and so that was what

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they did yesterday they had a 30 meter

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in run

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and then we simulated a problem on

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dragon with its communication system and

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that required all three crew members to

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work together to figure out what the

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correct operation was

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and i guess you know of course we don't

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really expect anything to go wrong but

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we always at nasa train for that pretty

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extensively just exactly yeah our

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simulations are always much harder than

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real life and that's the way you want it

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to be prepared for everything and then

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not have to use that preparation well i

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guess now the team on the ground has one

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run of this under its belt from spacex

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one um but the crew has not uh done this

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in real life that's correct and we

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actually had a spacex demo mission so

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we've gotten to see dragon come up twice

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now which is great from a ground

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perspective and then the crew of course

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is new every six months and so this crew

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hasn't seen one yet but they get a lot

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of training on the ground both from the

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robotics community and from the vvo

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community

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in watching the vehicle approach and

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then also the capture operations so

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they're very familiar with it this

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onboard training is really just a

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refresher all the hardcore training

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happens on the ground before they go up

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okay and do you feel like they're ready

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for it definitely yeah this crew is well

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prepared and they ask really great

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questions and and call us out on things

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sometimes so they're definitely on the

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ball i think we'll have a really good

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capture good good so um tell us a little

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bit about why it works like that why did

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we capture it with a robotic arm rather

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than letting it just

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come fly all the way up like say a soyuz

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does right so you kind of have two

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different kinds of vehicles that come to

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space station like you mentioned the

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soyuz and that is a docking vehicle and

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so it will come up all the way up to

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station and actually attach itself it'll

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line itself up with its port and go

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ahead and connect

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these vehicles and these

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include htv which is japan's vehicle and

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then also dragon and cygnus in the

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future which will be orbital sciences

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vehicle

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they come over to the u.s side and

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they're not built to go ahead and

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connect directly so they come up

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underneath the iss and then we grab them

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with robotics arm and attach them

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ourselves

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okay and um we've

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you know like you said a few

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runs of this one and then also some

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experience with other vehicles and

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should be should be good to go on march

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2nd definitely looking forward to it can

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you tell us anything about what um

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dragon will be bringing up to the

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station

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you know i'm not fully sure i don't want

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the cargo side of things i can tell you

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that we do have some external cargo for

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the first time which is very exciting

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from a robotics community perspective

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because they get to take the arm and

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have to pull stuff out of the trunk part

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of dragon which we haven't gotten to do

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yet we did some preparation in the last

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mission to get some views and see what

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it would look like but that's a first

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for this mission so i know there's a lot

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of work going into that oh i'm sure and

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it'll be up there for a while so the

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crew will probably need to practice a

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little bit for that as well exactly yeah

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they have a little bit of work they do

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just for cargo transfer figuring out

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what we take off what we put back on

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dragon dragon is full of science which

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is great and so there's a lot of science

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work that they'll be doing while it's up

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there and then the crew also do some

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training before we do dragon departure

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again for how they watch dragon leave

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and like you said a lot of training

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involving getting the cargo out of the

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trunk there with the arm sure and i

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think we're seeing here some animation

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of uh first of its journey to the

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station and now it's uh landing back in

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the ocean um just showing you how how

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that mission will work a little bit but

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again the crew plays a big part of it

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and they're already getting ready and

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have just about a week more to finish up

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their preparations and i'm assuming do

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some more off nominal um simulations

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that's right yeah we have some more

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training at the end of this week and

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early next um all the way up until right

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the day before capture we do some last

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minute training and like i said this is

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all just refresher for them and they

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also have the ability with the robot

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system that i mentioned to go ahead and

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do training anytime they want on board

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so they can set it up in their free time

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and do some runs and so you'll see them

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doing that a lot where they just go over

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and they've got 10 minutes here or there

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and they'll go capture some dragons get

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some extra credit points exactly yeah

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well who's doing what in the actual

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capture

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so uh like i mentioned we have three

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crew members uh two crew members who

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from our perspective we call vv1 and vb2

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are involved all the way from when

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dragon is at 250 meters the vv1 crew

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member and that's tom marshburn is the

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lead from a video perspective so he's

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watching the vehicle come up and he's

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making calls to the ground which if you

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listen during the capture and the

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approach you'll hear we call those block

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bravos and he's giving us a feel for

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what he sees the vehicle doing at any

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time we've got a diagram here of uh the

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different points of of its approach to

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the space station and then the second

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crew member who we call vb2 uh he's the

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lead robotics crew member and so that's

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kevin ford he's the one who'll be

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actually doing the capturing so he's

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going to be manning the arm that day and

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then at 30 meters

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chris hadfield will come in as kind of

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the overall help for the last 45 minutes

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or so

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and just kind of be the you know

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everybody's getting real involved in

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what's happening and he can kind of step

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back and keep a bigger picture view and

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be ready in case there were some sort of

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malfunctions which of course we don't

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expect to happen okay but um it sounds

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like everybody will be busy that day and

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uh it should be exciting to see the

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second spacex or third really come to

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the space station exactly yeah it'll be

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a good day and a nice long day all right

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thank you so much for talking with a

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story we really appreciate it and again

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she is the lead

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visiting vehicle officer for spacex 2