Our first glimpse of our module after the ride into space.
It all looks complete! No missing tools.
After launch, our first transfer is from Shuttle to a temporary
location on the SPDM robot.
This is a wide shot of us being held by the space walking astronaut on
the end of
the big Space Station arm. We were transferred to the Dextre
robot on Tuesday 7/12/2011.
View from the WVS (aka helmet cam) of the drive bolt being turned
during our installation onto the EOTP platform. This is the
temporary stowage location on the Dextre (SPDM) robot.
Here we are stored onto our temporary location on Dextre. It
also shows almost the
entire view of the latter robot. The two manipulator arms are
on the bottom right.
One is holding a big white box, called CTC
(Cargo Transport Container).
This is the astronaut using his camera to shoot an image of
himself. The reflection on the
visor shows what he is looking at, and it shows RRM! On the
outer edges, you can
see the round helmet of the astronaut.
On July 15, 2011, the President of the United States mentioned us in
his
call to the astronaut crew! Fast forward to 3:10 to hear it.
Transcript:
POTUS : I
understand you guys are also doing some important mission work up
there... I understand there is something about an innovate robotic
refueling demonstration.
Sandy : Yes Mr. President, we have a piece of equipment on board that
is a technology demonstration unit for the SPDM to work... to show and
prove the technology to robotically and remotely service
satellites. We are hoping with the work that we will be able
to do with the test bed here on Space Station it will lead us to
further advance our robotics capability.
POTUS : Well that is terrific and it is a good reminder of how NASA
technology and research often times has huge spillover effects into the
commercial sector and makes it all that much more important in terms of
people's day to day lives.
On Sept 2 2011, Dextre picked us up from the EOTP for our transport
to our final location on the Space Station.
Here we are located on our final location. This is known as
ELC-4
(Express Logistics Carrier #4). The EOTP is shown here empty.
To congratulate us, we received a call from astronaut Mike Fossum while
he was still on Space Station. Mike is the one that installed
us onto the EOTP.
We operated the Dextre
robot from the ground from the Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston,
Texas. This is the same building from where I supported the
Hubble Servicing Missions. The person doing the robot control
has the console name of ROBO, and sat in the Flight Control Room
(FCR). Operation of the robot occurred while the crew is
asleep and with the Space Station thrusters disabled. This
prevents any shaking of the end of the robot.
Crew sleep starts at around 3pm Eastern Time, and it took us about four
hours to set the RRM onto the ELC-4. Nine hours had been
scheduled for this operation, as a result, we had to wait another five
hours until midnight before we could proceed with the "activation", or
powering up of RRM.
Later that night, at around midnight, we were activated, and power was
turned onto RRM for the first time. The green trace on the
screen behind
me shows that all the data looked good and as we expected.
For the 2011 Christmas season, we prepared this video that
explains how Santa can make all those stops in one night.
In October 2012, Huffington Post featured this
video from ISS showing
Superstorm Sandy. As the camera pans over (around 4:02), RRM
photobombs the shot.