Post-launch monitoring in the User Room

What a dramatic beginning! It's really easy to think of the launch as the climax of a lot of work, but in truth all of that work was leading up to what is now taking place aboard the shuttle: the science.

I was able, before leaving Florida to visit the User Room, the hub from which post launch monitoring and communications primarily for the experiments that are based during flight at Kennedy Space Center (the four teams that use nonhuman subjects).

I saw and recognized the monitors that were checking the different systems on the RAHF racks 3 and 7, the Mammalian Development Team and the Adult Neuronal Plasticity Team respectively. To my unsophisticated eye everything looked excellent. On another table there was a monitor for the Neurobiology Team (the crickets), and across the room was a section in which the NASDA [National Space Development Agency of Japan] were monitoring. When I first arrived there were ffrom this team - as I left I counted 10 people from the Japanese team of scientists.

There was an interesting combination of feeling I got in this room. There was everpresent tension - maybe alertness or watchfulness are better terms. I got the feeling there wasn't too much relaxing goin on, but there was a real sense of confidence in how things were going. It was explained to me that there are two levels of alarm that can be sent from the shuttle. One would simply inform the ground of an anomaly that needs adjustment but that does not require alerting the crew (especially during sleep periods), and the alarm system that notifies the crew of a problem. I heard several times: "It's working very well when it's boring in here."

It's hard to believe that it could be boring even as I watched the shuttle edging around Earth on the animation in the corner of the large screen. It's the same animation that you can see at: http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/countdown/video/chan8.gif or http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/live/video.ram

I was surprised to know that there were periods of loss of contact as the shuttle moved out of satellite range. I first noticed it as the animation showed the shuttle leaving the Florida coast out into the Atlantic. I was told that during that time, the data that had been continuously being transmitted to the monitors there in the control room would be stored onboard and then dumped down to Earth as soon as contact was resumed. Somehow, I guess I thought we had the planet covered!

There were some familiar faces in the User room. Stefan Rosner was alternately walking around tethered to a communications line with Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, checking through paperwork, and picking up the phone to communicate with a PI about some requirements. It began to bring into focus the multiple functions he described in his bio online as his role for Neurolab. I watched him receive a request for information from Chris Maese who is representing Ames Research Center interests in Texas at JSC, relay that request to one of the PIs at the hangar locally [at KSC], and then respond to Chris. It's obvious that there's a truly efficient process in place when a problem arises for identifying it, figuring out what the options are, getting people to get the data required, and then collectively figuring out how to correct the problem.

In the User room as well was Brad Berch who I would presume is busy making sure that the procedures run smoothly. On one of the tables I had a chance to look through a little of the timeline that specifies what each crew member should be doing at any given time, and what procedures need to be accomplished. You could see the difficulty that could arise if one event were to flow into the time alotted for another, the concern for sacrificing one set of science for another. All-in-all, I can't quite imagine things getting any too boring in this room!

I was delighted to meet for the first time Tom Stolarik whose bio should be online very soon.