CHAPTER 12 DAY IN THE LIFE: EMPTY HOUSE—DECREWING THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION 210 Lights out. An empty US Laboratory module. As discussed in other chapters, the International Space Station (ISS) was largely designed to be controlled by operators from the ground. This would allow crew members to focus their time on scientific research and not the “humdrum” daily activities required to keep the scientific laboratory running. However, many tasks require crew insight and hands-on actions, especially in the cases of repairing failed equipment and responding to emergency events. What would it mean if, for some reason, all of the ISS crew members needed to return to Earth? Would all scientific research stop? Could the ISS even survive without a crew, and for how long? In August 2011, the ISS Program was asked these questions. On August 24, 2011, the Progress vehicle number 44P (i.e., the 44th Progress resupply vehicle in the ISS Program) was lost due to a problem in the engine of the Soyuz U rocket’s third stage. Although the loss of supplies being carried on a supply vehicle, such as Progress, would impact operations, the ISS Program continuously plans consumables to overcome the loss of at least one resupply mission (see also Chapters 1 and 14). The bigger impact to this loss was the similarity of the third stage of the Soyuz U rocket used to launch Progress cargo vehicles and the third stage of the Soyuz FG rocket used to launch Soyuz crewed vehicles. Immediately following the Soyuz U third stage failure, Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities—the government body that oversees Russia’s space program—started an investigation into the cause. However, it was unknown how long the investigation would last and whether any corrective actions would need to be taken on the Soyuz U and Soyuz FG rockets. Until the Soyuz U third stage failure was understood, the safety of launching new crews remained unclear. The crew on board the ISS was safe. However, Soyuz return vehicles have a limited lifetime. This presented the potential of needing to