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here inside the international space

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station flight control room right now

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the teams are continuing to track and uh

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monitor the cooling loop issue on board

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the international space station and to

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kick off our show today joining me on

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console is the expedition 38 lead flight

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director judd freiling judd first off

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thanks so much for joining me here today

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and we've been following along with this

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issue and i know you and the team have

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been doing a lot of really creative

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stuff to try and get this loop back up

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to its nominal settings what are just

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some of the things you guys have been

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doing over the last couple of days

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sure

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as as you're aware of dan uh it's uh

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we're we're in a spot now with uh our

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external curling loop bravo uh that it's

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rejecting all the heat of the station

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and we're trying to get this

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loop alpha

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into a state where we can reject some of

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the heat of the internal loads so just

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usually we we operate with the loop loop

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alpha in a closed loop control mode so

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we're uh we're we're unable to do that

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now so

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sort of the uh the the efforts we're

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trying to do is is kind of learn how to

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operate this uh this this loop in a in a

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kind of an open loop mode where we're

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we're using the controllers here on the

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ground

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to uh to to to to be the closed loop

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so and so real quick just what was the

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failure

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you know it was with one of the the

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valves actually inside the loop correct

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right right so so we have a pump module

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package assembly that's that's outside

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that that's the pump that flows all the

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ammonia throughout the the external

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loops

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and um

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on that that loop alpha and uh what what

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what failed was the regulation of of of

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of where the the hot in the and the warm

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ammonia go right so we call that the

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flow control valve

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as such where we're only getting a lot

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of cold

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cold ammonia into the system right so

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that means that

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we've got an interface between

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the the external ammonia system and the

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the internal cooling system which is an

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internal water loops

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that are cooled by water

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uh through what's called an interface

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heat exchanger okay

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if uh if we get the uh the ammonia

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outside too cold

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uh we we are unable to integrate these

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interfaith interface heat exchangers uh

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with with the internal loops because

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uh there's a risk of freezing the

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internal water loops and and uh if we

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freeze the internal water loops that's a

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that's a bad thing sounds like a much

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bigger problem right it's

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what ends up happening is those those

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interface heat exchangers have a really

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small

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uh if you can think of a radiator on

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your car real small fins and and in

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places where

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they connect and and and if we freeze

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this the water expands excuse me expands

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and uh

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would allow ammonia to come to the

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internal uh part of station and that's

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that's a really bad thing for them

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definitely astronauts avoid and so what

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what have the teams here in mission

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control been doing to try and you know

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get around this issue get the loops back

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up to functioning to where they should

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be sure so so the external loop we're

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still uh like i said uh trying to use uh

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uh the the team on the ground is kind of

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a closed loop

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control uh by commanding manually so we

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we've tried to command manually the the

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loops we we we see the the heat goes up

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and we command a little adjustments on a

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different valve not this flow control

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valve but a different valve

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that is regulating the cold

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ammonia that goes into the pump

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so so we kind of pinch off that valve a

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little bit

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and uh

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that that allows the loop to warm up and

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then we open it up a little bit and

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allows the loop to cool down a bit and

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it's my understanding that this is a

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loop that you know before you guys

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targeted it it was one that was just

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open or closed i mean this is something

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that loop wasn't necessarily designed to

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do right so this this valve that we're

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manipulating uh is is called a radiator

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a return isolation valve so as the name

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implies it's it's an isolation valve and

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so normally it would just be open or

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closed so so we're using this particular

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isolation valve in a in a manner that it

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wasn't originally designed to be used

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and so there's there's a lot of finesse

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and basically what we do is

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as we start it at a known position

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we tell it to drive

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and then

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a number of seconds after it drives we

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pull the power from the valve so that

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fixes it in a certain spot and can you

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give us just a general sense of how that

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fix has been working so far and or what

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you're looking at or if you're going to

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continue doing that or are you looking

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at other things you know in the coming

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days

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sure the uh the the fidelity that we

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have here on the ground to uh to to

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precisely control

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when that valve

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you know starts moving in stops

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is uh on the order of um

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about

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point

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somewhere in that range

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um we really need the fidelity to be

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much finer than that we need it to be on

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the order of point one seconds okay okay

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so uh the way we can rely be reliably

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produce that is

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by

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putting some software on the computers

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on board

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that that

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basically allows us to get that finer

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control and so so so engineers and

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coders overnight have been working on uh

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kind of a software we call it a patch a

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software fix

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to one of the computers that controls

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controls that valve movement

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and

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we we have we've identified the the code

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fix we're testing it out right now and

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uh hopefully by this afternoon uh we'll

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be able to uplink it to the vehicle and

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uh and then uh start to again re-learn

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how to how to manipulate that isolation

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valve such that we can control the the

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temperatures of the external loop pretty

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reliably okay well thanks again judd

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again the teams here in mission control

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flying a ship for over 10 years now and

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they're still learning how to do new

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things with it

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so continue to follow along as you guys

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try and get that loop back into its

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nominal configuration really appreciate

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you coming on and giving us a quick