How's the mission been going so far?
We have undocking tomorrow, so talk about how big of a day that is
and what all is on tap for the team here.
Well first of all, yes it's been a very successful mission.
We've installed the new MRM1 module on the space station for the Russians.
We've also replaced some spare batteries and brought up a spare high-gain KU band antenna
and tomorrow we do have undocking on plan for the crew during the afternoon.
We've talked about it a lot of NASA TV, and Mike Sarafin talked
about it during the mission status briefing, that there's been a couple of snags
with the orbiter boom sensor system cable and a couple other challenges,
there's always those kind of things that the team here has to address but talk a bit about,
as a flight director, how do you sort of coordinate the team here
and how do you address those types of challenges we have during the shuttle missions.
Well we have a lot of resources here with the team
and you're right, every mission has its glitches.
In our case, on this flight, the big glitch was a cable that was bound that prevented the OBSS,
the boom camera, from being able to aim at the orbiter's wings during the inspection.
And again, the real resources we have here are the smart people that can come
up with a plan to work around the failure.
Now they're coming up with a plan to get the most inspection accomplished that we could
on flight day two but also to fix the cable that was stuck on EVA #2.
Now one thing we have, I guess the biggest thing we have tomorrow is undocking
and Atlantis is going to say farewell to the station.
Typically this is done on orbit 1 which is the first shift of the crew's day
but it's actually going to take place on our shift tomorrow.
So, talk a bit about what kind of preparations are being made for us and the team here tomorrow
to take care of that for the crew.
Yes, the flight control team today is part
of our preparations planning for undocking tomorrow.
We reviewed the trajectory, the lighting conditions and the computer set up for the crew
and we discussed those matters with the crew and provided some messages for them
to review this evening so the team will be ready tomorrow when it's time to undock.
Now, you started out as a station flight director and now you're doing shuttle,
which is actually two different things here at NASA.
You have two different training regimes you have to go through to become one or the other
so talk a bit about how different is it if you prefer one over the other.
What are the differences between them?
Well they both have their challenges.
Fundamentally, the job is fairly similar between the two in terms
of the flight director being the leader of the team of flight controllers on the ground
that are monitoring the vehicle and helping the crew work through their procedures
and maintain safe systems and re-planning their activities but in the details, the station
and the shuttle are fundamentally different type vehicles.
The shuttle can launch and land.
It has to be able to perform atmospheric flight and it can be brought back and repaired
and fixed and ready for the next launch whereas the space station has been on-orbit already
for a decade and is going to remain in operation at least until 2020.
So, the challenge with the station is that anything
that breaks on-board the space station must be repaired in space.
That's one of the big differences and another big difference is the space shuttle functions
like an airplane.
The crew is there throwing the switches and working through the procedures,
pushing the buttons, operating the computers mostly on-board whereas the space station is
operated, to a large extent, from the ground.
The flight controllers perform ground commanding to operate the various functions and that frees
up the crew to be able to accomplish science and to be able
to repair the station when it needs fixing.
And I would also think that as a station flight director you'd have to work
with all the other flight control centers all around the world
and shuttle is pretty much is this room.
Is that a big difference too that you get to work with other partners and control centers?
Yea, that's very true.
The space shuttle is very self-contained.
Mostly working with this team here in Houston as well as our engineering counterparts
that assist us whereas the space station, you're right, we interface with the Russians in Moscow,
the Europeans in their control center as well as our payload operations center
in Huntsville and the Japanese as well.
We've been taking a look back throughout this entire mission of Atlantis' career,
25 years and 32 different flights.
Have you had a moment to kind of reflect back on the fact
that this is most likely Atlantis' last flight and you're a major part of it along
with the rest of this team, has that hit you yet?
Well, we have reflected on it, I've reflected on it,
the team and I have discussed it during quiet moments but for the most part when we're here,
we're focused on getting the mission done right and watching over the vehicle.
Where did you go to school?
How did you get to NASA?
I went to Virginia Tech.
Before you were a flight director what position did you serve here?
Like most flight directors, I started out in the ranks of flight controllers.
I started in the shuttle flight dynamics discipline.
That's the shuttle trajectory operations, so managing the shuttle's flight path
and working my way up from the back room to the front room to rendezvous to orbit ops
for several years and then launch and landing.
In 2007, I was selected to be a flight director.
So you've been in this room then down in the station room now you're back
as a shuttle leader.
That's pretty interesting.
As you sit here and you work with this team,
what do you think is probably the coolest thing about being a flight director?
We talk to flight directors all the time about working with the shuttle and working
with this team but for you, what is the most rewarding thing about leading this team here?
Well the most rewarding thing is the people.
Just getting to work with a wide variety of people throughout JSC
and the other centers and also the flight crews.
That's the best part and the other really neat part is as a flight director,
as a single discipline operator, you're always sort of envious of the other guys
that are getting to do neat work with the space walks to the robotics and the different systems
and as a flight director you really get to be involved and have a good,
overall view of the mission and so that's a very rewarding part of the job.
You kind of have to know a little bit about everything including public affairs, don't you?
Just a little bit of that.
Last question, every flight director gets to pick a team name.
So what is yours and what is the meaning of it?
My team name is Venture Flight and I picked that because I wanted something
that would represent what NASA is really all about.
A lot of people think that NASA is all about technology, rocket engines and computers
and whatnot but really we're about more than that.
We're about exploring space and the technology is just the tool that we use to explore.
So I see us as carrying on the tradition of the great explorers that have come before us.
Humans started off in Africa and over the millennia they've spread to all corners
of the world and now we have humans living 200 miles above the earth.
So, the name Venture Flight I believe represents
that universal human desire to explore the unknown.