CHAPTER 2 DAY IN THE LIFE: LIVING AND WORKING IN SPACE AND ON THE GROUND 20 The first six-person crew—Increment 20 in 2009—included astronauts and cosmonauts from all international partner agencies for the first (and, so far, the only) time. From left: Canadian Bob Thirsk, European Frank De Winne, Russian Gennady Padalka, Russian Roman Romanenko, Japanese Koichi Wakata, and American Michael Barratt. The International Space Station (ISS) is a hub of never-ending activity, around the clock, around the world, every day. On board the orbiting laboratory, the crew members are not only the laboratory technicians, they also keep the facility up and running by working as janitors, plumbers, electricians, information technology support, medics, kitchen crew, and housekeeping. They manage the arrival of vehicles delivering new crew, new equipment, and additional supplies, as well as the departure of vehicles returning crew and equipment to Earth or disposing of trash. They are responsible for completing any necessary repairs or reconfiguration that cannot be done by simply changing parameters in software. On the ground, the flight control teams—both on console and off—support the increment as a whole by working between control centers and management teams around the globe to keep the crew safe, keep the ISS running smoothly, and meet all mission objectives. Together, the on-board crew and the ground teams respond to problems, incorporate new priorities, and adapt the mission plan as conditions change—sometimes on a daily basis. Crew rotation flights are currently done using Soyuz vehicles, launched by the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. A Soyuz can fly up to three crew members, and can stay on orbit and docked to the ISS for about 6 months, where it is available as a “lifeboat” to return the crew to Earth in the event of an emergency. Four Soyuz crews have been flown each year since 2009, maintaining a total crew of six people on board the ISS most of the time. Prior to 2009, the ISS had a permanent crew of three people, with two Soyuz launches per year. The launches take place approximately every 2-4 months. Usually, flights are arranged in a pattern of “indirect handovers”: one Soyuz will undock just before launch of the next, so the crew goes from six people on board down to three, and back up to six when the next Soyuz