Launch minus 1 days and counting

Baikonur day 3

The control board was an amazing event. After all the approvals and speeches were given, there was a press conference with the prime and backup crew after the event. Hardest question was to Astronaut Peggy Whitson, it went something like this “ Being an American, how do you feel about flying with a Muslim? Peggy gave the perfect answer: “The one thing about flying in space you look down at the earth and you see one planet and you realize that there is no reason for war”.

Later in the day we go to the lab to finish loading the hardware. It is now 10PM, we just finished having dinner in the break room. Back in the lab, we are ready to put the endplates on and finish up the assembly of the hardware. May be back in Hotel #1 about 1AM.

Tomorrow: LAUNCH!

Launch minus 2 days and counting

Baikonur day 4

Up at 5:30 AM today to see the horizontal rollout of the Soyuz by train to the launch site and then to the raising of the rocket from horizontal to vertical launch position. Then growing cells in the morning and then start filling operations on the hardware preparation this afternoon. It is now 9 PM, we have lab operations until about 2 PM- same thing happens tomorrow before turnover of the experiment to Kaiser Italia for the leak test.

Got out of the lab at 11:30 PM, back to hotel #1 at midnight and into bed by 1AM.
I have a big day tomorrow. I will attend the State Board in Baikonur where the official approvals are given for flight of Soyuz and the Cosmonauts.

Launch minus 3 days and counting

Baikonur day 3

Up early, ate early and we were in the lab by 7:45AM. Worked until the afternoon. Later in the day I had the opportunity to meet the head of the Malaysian Space Science, Professor Dr. A Rahman A Jamal. We learned that they had 4 space science experiments going up on this mission. Their space science program was envisioned, planned and executed in less than 2 years. After submitting their proposals the scientists were selected and funded in about 4 months. The Malaysian government supports science and knows how to be efficient!

When the United States had a program, it could take up to seven years from proposal to flight. Seven years looks good now since now there is no US space science program. Tonight, after dark, some of us were escorted on a stroll to an area without lights, only a 10-minute walk. There we saw the International Space Station (ISS) pass overhead, what a sight. Looking at it speeding above us made me think that our experiment, PKINASE will be up there speeding along on ISS in a few days via the Soyuz Taxi.

Launch minus 4 days and counting

Baikonur day 2

The days are starting to merge together. There is routine. The ESA group (scientists, engineers and administrators) has breakfast, lunch an dinner together in the same room. Today we examine the cells and feed them, clean up the lab and get organized. Still working out of suitcases. Also, put the autoclaved hardware out on the table in anticipation of launch minus 2 days when we start the filling the hardware. We filled out paperwork, worked on the blog and checked our email ( a hard thing to do in the Steeps of Kazakhstan). Later we went into town and met some of the female Malaysian scientists. Today is Chai-Fei’s birthday so we went to the Baikonur Market and bought saffron, pomegranates, nuts and Kazakhstan cognac. At dinner, we toasted Chai-Fei’s birthday and ate pomegranate seeds for dessert. Various members of the group sang “Happy Birthday” to her in English, German, French, Italian and Chinese. It was a great day.

Launch minus 5 days and counting

Trip to Baikonur

Tammy and Chai-Fei were up at 4AM to get packed and go to IBMP and get the monocytes on the next leg of our trip. I am not far behind, I am up at 4:30AM, shower, pack and go down to the lobby and wait for our pick-up at 6:20 AM. We then go to the labs where we pick up the rest of the team. We check in at the Energia airport and board on an ESA chartered KOCMOC Ty-134A airplane. It holds 76 passengers. First class looks a lot like our economy class except the seats have more padding and there is a curtain separating us from them. Everyone is excited about going to the launch site and spirits are high. A team of Malaysian scientists have been added to the science effort about 8 months ago and we look forward to getting to know them better during the next five days. We will be in the air for about 4 hours before landing in Kazakhstan. Many of us are sleeping in our seats in preparation for the work ahead in the labs.


We arrive in the labs and start to set up, last time the labs were used was 6 months ago, portable vacuums must be found and turned on, CO2 incubator turned on and calibrated, biological safety hoods cleaned and turned on. Our three suitcases are opened and spread on the floor. The three of us start the procedures all working independently but in unison.

First we make media and filter, then spin the four tubes of monocytes and count them under the calibrated hemocytometer under the microscope. Next we subculture and feed them before we can leave. It is 7:30PM, the rest of the European team is waiting for us outside the lab. We now are free to check into the Hotel #1, have a late dinner about 8:30 PM and then unpack and settle in after 10PM.

Launch minus 6 days

Moscow day 3 This is a slower day. Greg Slick and I went to Red Square to look around and take a few photos. Tammy and Chai-Fei went to the lab and prepare the monocytes for travel for tomorrow. They finished in time to visit central Moscow and then come back to the Sovietsky Hotel to rest. Basically the entire team is tired from the travel and constant caring for the monocytes. It has started drizzling outside and we are trying to rest up before the trip to Baikonur and the launch site.

Launch –7 days and counting

Moscow day 2

Finally got to sleep around 1AM this morning and we have an 8:30 AM pickup to go visit Star City, where the cosmonauts train for spaceflight. It is a two hour drive from our hotel; we got to the guard gate of Star City and waited for our tour guide Dimitri. The trip was worthwhile, we saw the cosmonaut cultural center, and went to Yuri Gagarin’s office where all cosmonauts visit before going to Baikonur for launch- it is thought to be a lucky place, so we touched his desk for good fortune. We then went down the “walk of heroes” to the training center. There we saw the MIR space station model, the Soyuz capsule and the statue of Gagarin with the stain glass window behind.

We saw the underwater training facility- a circular pool that is 16 meters deep and contains a full size ISS trainer- this is where the cosmonauts train for extra vehicular activity (EVA). We also saw the largest (18m) man rated centrifuge in the world - very impressive.

Then Chai-Fei and Tammy return to the IBMP laboratory to visit the cells and feed them. We also had some hardware o-rings to autoclave. All is well in the lab.

Launch –8 days and counting
Moscow

After being up for 10 hours, with our supplies and living monocyte cells, we are still waiting at Sheremetyevo, the Moscow airport for our biological samples to clear customs. The time drags on, each call says “it will only be another 30 minutes”. Daylight darkens into sunset and then to night and we are still waiting. Meanwhile the monocytes are getting cold, the frozen fetal calf and other supplies are warming up all approaching ambient temperature together.

Finally, at 9:30PM the final luggage is cleared, without the help of the ESA-Moscow customs specialist, Igor, we would still be in Customs. Now we are on our way to the Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow where our colleague has waited for the same amount of time for us to come to the lab. It is now 10PM, we have not eaten today but the cells must be taken care of first. We wheel our 3 suitcases into the lab and open them up and start working, one of us in the tissue culture biological hood, one at the microscope counting cells and one setting up in the outer lab. Our driver, Valarey sent by the ESA-Moscow office is also waiting outside for us to finish so he can take us to the Sovietsky. All of our colleagues here are making it possible for us to complete this experiment. Dr. Ludmila Buravkova, our host at the IBMP had a colleague stay late and come in early to the laboratory and ESA has sent their IBMP customs expert to help us at the airport, a driver and a van. We have been lucky to work with these great people.

PKINASE, Among the last space biology experiments

Launch-14 and counting Wednesday September 26th, 2007 somewhere over the Atlantic

Imagine taking your entire molecular biology lab halfway across the world to put an experiment on the 15S Soyuz flight to the International Space Station (ISS). You must remember every pipette, every drop of media, every coverslip, flask, cell counter everything because there is no Fisher Scientific outlet at the launch site in Baikonur, Kazakhstan Your experiment is executed in orbit above the earth and the cosmonaut operators have been trained by people outside your lab and you hope for the best.

We had a early start today and we have had about six hours sleep over the last 30 hours. The team was at the lab at 12:30 AM for final preparation of the immune cells. Our first stop is Amsterdam where we will culture the monocytes and let them recover from the trip. We have 10 suitcases of clothing, supplies and equipment going to Amsterdam with us.

Why Amsterdam? Since there is no science shuttle, I am flying my experiment with the European Space Agency (ESA). Kaiser Italia made the flight hardware and with the complicated import/export rules since 9/11, ESA and our lab were concerned that the hardware could get stranded in US Customs. So we are going to Amsterdam to prepare the hardware for the flight. On landing, we go to the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) laboratories in Noordwijk,The Netherlands and start operations.