CHAPTER 12 DAY IN THE LIFE: EMPTY HOUSE—DECREWING THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION 214 Preparing to Abandon Ship Colonel Mike Fossum, Commander, Expedition 29 The crew of Expedition 28 was following the launch of the 44th Progress resupply vehicle (44P) with great interest because we knew the ship would bring not only necessary supplies, but also fresh food and care packages from home. When we heard about the launch failure, the crew huddled together to discuss the events. We were initially disappointed in the lost supplies however, within a few minutes, we realized the booster used to get the Progress cargo ship into orbit was very similar to the one used to launch humans on the Soyuz spacecraft. The investigation of a rocket failure that scattered debris across many hundreds of miles was going to take time. Perhaps a lot of time. We knew immediately this might mean our stay on the ISS could be extended for as long as the on-orbit lifetime of our Soyuz spacecraft would allow. And it could mean we would be forced to leave before the next crew arrived. The ISS—an amazing orbiting laboratory representing the hopes and dreams of 15 partner nations—could be without a crew for the first time since Expedition 1 began in 2000. The enormity of the situation quickly became clear. We had a new mission: Steel ourselves for a longer-than-intended stay, prepare the space station for operations without a crew on board, and do whatever we could to help prepare the next crew to take control of the ship with little to no handover time. Figure 2. Astronaut Mike Fossum installs an electrical bypass jumper to provide a redundandt power feed for the MBSU-1 in case the ISS had to be left uncrewed. Maintaining the viability of the Regenerative ECLSS (see Chapter 19) was a major concern for the team. Although the Regenerative ECLSS is an engineering marvel that consistently recycles a large majority of the water on the ISS and provides clean drinking water and breathing oxygen, it is still a new technology that can be temperamental and require manual input to keep it running. Additionally, part of the closed-loop ECLSS is the crew. They inhale oxygen and drink water that is provided by the system. In turn, they exhale carbon dioxide and produce water in the form of perspiration and urine, which is taken into the system for cleaning. Without a crew on board, this closed loop is broken. One option for the decrewed configuration would be to deactivate the Regenerative ECLSS and let it sit idle after draining out the fluids or leaving the fluids (e.g., water or urine) stagnant. Removing all fluid from the system would be time consuming and difficult, and success could not be guaranteed. Additionally, the engineering team was concerned that parts would become damaged and need to be replaced if the Regenerative ECLSS was dried out, potentially leading to a long period of fine tuning the system to get it running again. If fluid was