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good day and welcome to mission control

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houston i'm kelly humphries uh and this

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is shannon walker an astronaut and a

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veteran of a long duration space flight

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on the international space station and

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also a uh expert in what it takes to get

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ready and land a soyuz spacecraft

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welcome shannon thank you it's good to

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be here kelly it's wonderful to have you

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here uh tell us a little bit about what

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the crew has been doing in the week or

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so leading up here and

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you might even throw in what the extra

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work of doing a spacewalk in the middle

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of all that was like probably

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yeah

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leading up to

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an undocking basically the crew has to

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get the cargo ready to go that is going

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to be packed on the soyuz and since the

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soyuz descent module is so small there's

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not a lot of room for cargo so they have

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to pack it very carefully so on the

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the u.s side and with chris cassidy and

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tom marshburn and

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chris hatfield they've gathered up the

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us cargo that needs to be packed up

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packaged it carefully giving it off to

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the russians who will then pack it into

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the soyuz underneath the seats and in a

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few nooks and crannies getting ready to

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go so having an eva come in the middle

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of your last minute packing uh kind of

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makes makes the schedule a little bit

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more compact and a little bit a little

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bit more busy

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well and chris mentioned in

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one of the daily planning conferences

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that roman was off doing most of that

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while they were doing the space walk

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does that

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logistically make a lot of sense

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yeah it does luckily when we do our our

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space walks the entire space station is

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open and so rahman has access to

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anything on the u.s side that he might

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need to uh pack at the end and if we've

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done our homework right we've got

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everything ready to go days ahead of

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time ahead of the undock but sometimes

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last minute items come up for example

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probably today there's probably some

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last minute science samples that were

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taken that need to be packaged and

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packed and and sent down on the soyuz so

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there is some last minute packing that

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happens just to make sure that the the

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science isn't um

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well it remains at the proper

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temperature on the way home i believe

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they were bringing back some japanese

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protein crystal growth samples this time

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around

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well so tell us a little bit about uh

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what it's like to get ready in terms of

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inside the soyuz it's a fairly cramped

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area and i think we've got some images

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that will help you describe that

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okay yeah this is a picture that you see

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of the soyuz descent module so this is

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the actual place that the crew

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sits all the way down coming home when

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they first get into the soyuz before oh

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look there's some good pictures of the

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soyuz seats where the where the crew

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will be sitting you can see they're kind

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of small and your knees are up close to

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your chest it's not like sitting in a in

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an airplane by any stretch of the

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imagination but when the crew gets in

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they will then put on what's termed

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their circle suits these are the

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pressurization suits that the crew wears

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and they will get into their seats these

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are the panels this is the

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instrumentation that the the crew sees

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on the way home and so they will go

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through checks and make sure that all

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the systems of the soyuz are working

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properly there's valves to be configured

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and and

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all kinds of

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checks obviously you want all your

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systems to work properly so they go

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through some pretty detailed checks to

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making sure everything is is ready to go

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and at the appropriate time they will

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push the button to unhook

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the soyuz from the space station this is

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a good view of what the commander has

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right in front of him the soyuz

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commander he has a periscope where he

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can see activity outside that is the

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hatch actually that is above the crew

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that goes into what's called the orbital

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compartment and the orbital compartment

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is when on the way up they have lots of

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cargo in there and on the way down there

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are things that are not going to make it

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back to earth because the orbital

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compartment will separate from the

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descent module and burn up into the

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atmosphere so it's a chance to get rid

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of some things that you may not need

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such as

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you know like some hygiene items that

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you might have used on the station that

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you're not using anymore and then uh

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some of the clothes that you actually

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wear into the soyuz

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okay

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um well now you were a member of the

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exhibition 24 25 crew how long did you

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spend on orbit i was there almost six

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months okay

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i imagine it's got to be

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a little bit bittersweet getting ready

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to come home yes of course it is i mean

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you've had a very busy time on orbit it

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is a fantastic place to live and work

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and

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um it is it is sad uh leaving because

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for a lot of people you don't know if or

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when you might be able to go back to

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that wonderful laboratory that we have

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in the sky

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well and and you're also getting ready

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to come back to gravity after not having

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had any for quite some time six months

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in your case uh we've got some uh

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animation that shows the process maybe

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you could walk us through that and and

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maybe give us a little insight about

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what it's feeling like on the inside of

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the soyuz is coming up absolutely i

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would love to

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so of course the first thing that

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happens is the soyuz undocks from the

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station is actually pushed away by some

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springs uh about 15 seconds or so well

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actually a couple minutes i'm i'm

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misspoke there a couple minutes after it

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gets away from the station it fires some

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jets and backs further away

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it

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goes around the earth about one time and

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then it will fire its main engine on the

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the soyuz spacecraft to slow it down to

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bring it back into the atmosphere that

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engine burn is about four and a half

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minutes long

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about 20 30 minutes after that the

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compartments separate so there goes the

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orbital compartment there goes your main

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engine you don't need it anymore and the

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sp the descent module is on its own and

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it starts coming through the atmosphere

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now this is where it gets pretty

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exciting right it gets very hot on the

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inside of the soyuz the outside is

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heating up

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it's a

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pretty dynamic event a little bit later

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the parachute

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comes out when you're about 35 000 feet

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in the sky so you're up where the

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airplanes are flying the parachute comes

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out that's another really dynamic event

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it's a lot of bouncing and jerking

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around and about 15 minutes after that

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you will actually uh land on the ground

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in kazakhstan

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and so do you actually start feeling

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gravity while you're in the descent

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sequence before you actually hit the

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earth yeah you do absolutely once you

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start into uh the atmosphere when you

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can see things start heating up you can

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feel yourself being pulled down into

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your seat a little bit more at that

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point you really want to tighten your

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your straps you've got shoulder

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harnesses you've got straps on your

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knees and

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like a waist belt to make sure that you

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are tightly

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slightly affixed to your seat so when

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you do hit the ground that you're not

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going to bounce out and hurt yourself so

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with the increasing gravity you have

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more opportunity to tighten your straps

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and and make sure everything is safe

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is it a good feeling coming back and

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feeling gravity again or is it or is it

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not good it's i would say it's kind of

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strange i wouldn't put it in a good or

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not good it just it's very different

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because you haven't felt it for for six

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months and so it's just a very unusual

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sensation to have again on your body

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and then after you of course have have

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the those those uh

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earth-facing rockets have fired and

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softened uh the blow you land the

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recovery teams show up you're pretty

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much sitting there in the soyuz waiting

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for them to show up uh and getting a

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chance to feel gravity even some more

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then

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tell us a little bit more about the

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extrication process yeah that's it's a

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very interesting how they help you out

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of the soyuz there's basically two cases

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you can have the soyuz land upright so

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you're actually sitting in your seats

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laying on your backs like you would hope

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that you're sort of the normal

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configuration of the soyuz or a lot of

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times the soyuz will bounce depending on

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the wind conditions and it'll roll over

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on its side in that case you can be

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anywhere so you could be

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laying on your back you could be hanging

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from your straps and that fact was my

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case so i was kind of leaning forward on

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the low side of the soyuz and so

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in that case the search and rescue crew

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has to roll the soyuz to the proper

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orientation to help you out of the soyuz

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and they do help you out they don't want

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to have the crew hurt themselves getting

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out so they they take you out of the

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soyuz if it lands upright then the crew

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has to be able to

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get out the hatch overhead which is it

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takes a considerable amount of effort to

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do when you haven't dealt with gravity

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it's just some emotions that you haven't

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done in a while even though you exercise

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every day on orbit it's still just

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something new to your body

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and but then of course you get the the

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smells of earth yes yes and it that is

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what it was was really neat um

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the a lot of people ask what does the

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space station smell like it doesn't

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really smell like anything it's just

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kind of a neutral smell it's uh there's

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there's no special smell of the space

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station but when you open the hatch in

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kazakhstan you can smell the grass and

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it smells very sweet like flowers and

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perfume almost even though it's just

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grass out there in the steps of

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kazakhstan it's an amazing sensation and

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it really lets you know that you're

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truly home on planet earth it's probably

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going to be springtime when these guys

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yeah so there might be flowers out there

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too so that'll be great that's great

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well any last words of advice for uh

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chris hadfield or tom marshburn or roman

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remain called as they're coming home

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well as they're coming home i would just

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say to them to truly enjoy the ride

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because it is kind of special it is uh

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pretty exciting but um

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it always always goes according to plan

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so enjoy it and we will see them on the

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ground here very shortly

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all right well shannon walker thank you

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so much for bringing your experience and

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expertise to mission control with us

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today and give people a peek on the

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inside of what's going to be happening

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later tonight when that