EarthKAM and ISS

EarthKAM will fly aboard the International Space Station (ISS), and will be located in the U.S. Laboratory Module. It is scheduled for six operational (ops) cycles per year. An ops cycle consists of four days, with 18 hours a day (12 orbits) for image capturing and 6 hours of downtime (though the camera and computer are still powered up). We will be testing the payload during the flight 5A to 5A.1 interval with scheduled operations beginning as soon as our testing is completed.

Most of the equipment for EarthKAM is already up on Station. This equipment is part of NASA's Photo/TV Core. We are working with the station engineers to make sure everything is properly planned and integrated. Besides allowing for power consumption, we are also part of what is called the Plug-in-Plan. If you are not listed/provided for in this plan, you will not have an outlet for power, nor will you have time allotted for power. Everything is timelined, and everything plugged in must be allotted for on the timeline - power needed, datalinks, crew training, and payload integration.

I stay busy coordinating anything EarthKAM interfaces with on station. We are developing new checklists, and re-evaluating ground base support. We are evaluating the software that will operate the camera, as it will need to be tested and manifested into the software load for the ISS. A change will be required to change from orbiter ops to station ops. The orbiter uses MET (Mission Elapsed Time) to track the time during the mission, whereas the station uses GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) - which will result in changes needing to be made to the EarthKAM flight software and in a few other areas. GMT is also the way that the EarthKAM images down-linked from the ISS will be cataloged.

My group must also train to work on console in either the Multi Purpose Support Room (MPSR pronounced mipser) or the TeleScience Center (TSC). This training is parallel, but not as intensive, as the training that the regular MPSR flight controllers go through (we only control the EarthKAM payload, the flight controllers are responsible for the orbiter or station). It does include working mission-specific simulations (sims), or what is also called OJT, on the job training.

We are tentatively scheduled to test EarthKAM on station between ISS Flights 5A and 5A.1, which presently is scheduled for launch January and February 2001. Sally Ride, the P.I. for this payload, will then determine the ops plan for the next year. The P.I. is the principal investigator, or the person who heads up the payload, project or experiment.

Once we are up, school administrators, teachers and most important, the middle school students can begin their actual operations. Flying on station will make EarthKAM much easier for schools to add to their curriculum. The problem of shuttle flights slipping (being postponed) will be eliminated. This problem occurred with STS-93, which slipped about a year, then went up in the summer, so the camera didn't go in the window. For all of us, who had been looking forward to and preparing for the mission, this was quite a disappointment.