In her own words “[…] I think it´s really incredible science so I’m looking forward to DCMIX team […] thank you guys I hope you get some cool results. […]“

Wilco! Thanks to you Kate, you are indeed our rock star!

Source: NASA

– [Kate Rubins] Copy Houston…And Hunstville Station on Space to Ground 2 for SODI.

– [Paycom] With you on 2, Kate.

– [Kate Rubins] I just wanted to let you know the photos are available for downlink on SSC20 and Andria, you are an absolute rock star! Thank you for being a fantastic PAYCOM, and getting us through a complex and very cool set up today and I just want to take a moment to say thank you to the all of the folks at Hunstville that are doing operations, the SODI team, the MSG team. You guys are really impressive with what you’re able to do with these procedures. It’s really smooth getting the stuff in, even when we hit a little snag we figure it out quickly, and I think it´s really incredible science so I’m looking forward to the DCMIX team. I’m not exactly an expert on tripartite hydrocarbon mixtures but, it’s very cool. I’ve actually been reading up on it because it’s so interesting. I didn’t know a lot about thermodiffusion, on how microgravity affects thermodynamic modelling, but it´s really a fascinating example of the kind of variety of science we have up here so thank you guys, I hope you get some cool results. And also to Munich, to Uwe. Thank you very much for the training at EAC. I still remember that class and that helped me out a lot with the big picture today. So I appreciate it, to all those folks.

– [Paycom] Thanks Kate, Hunstville copies all and will pass on all those good words, and considering we started the activity with a couple of screws loose, I think we did pretty well.

– [Kate Rubins] I was saying the same thing, so thank you so much again!

La entrada SODI-DCMIX: happy to see you again! aparece primero en E-USOC.

Development and validation of the on-board procedures and automatic scripts, planning of the on-board activities, remote control and monitoring of the payload, troubleshooting of anomalies in a quick and agile way, data retrieval and dissemination to the scientific community, have been some of the tasks carried on by E-USOC in this project, for which there has been a tight coordination and collaboration with NASA.

NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins (@astroillini) installed ESA’s Selectable Optical Diagnostics Instrument (SODI) inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) on November 14, although the Cell Array (CA) of fluids was not installed until the end of the month, when it reached the ISS aboard the Progress 53 cargo ship. One of the most determining factors for the success of the mission was the limited lifetime of those fluid samples, an event determined by the appearance of bubbles. So, prior to its arrival to the Space Station, E-USOC team conducted a thorough optical checkout and calibration tests of relevant importance, because they allowed to start operating and generating useful science data from the very first moment of the Cell Array installation.

The mission concluded successfully after more than two month of operations. The payload was uninstalled on February 7th and the Cell Array was removed and is planned to be disposed of (destructive re-entry in a Progress spacecraft).

From the scientific point of view, the experiment has generated a substantial amount of high quality images of great value for the analysis of the processes involved in the diffusion of ternary fluid mixtures. In light of these good results, both NASA and ESA agreed to extend the operations one additional week. The extra activities turned out to produce more valuable science data, not considered initially in the mission’s main purposes. For example, the gas bubble appearing in the liquid cell over time was used by the science team for thermo/solute capillary (Marangoni effect) convection runs. Furthermore, downloaded images from the primary runs already seem to prove the predicted huge Soret effect.

E-USOC has received international recognition for the great performance in these operations. The European Space Agency in particular said:

“The Agency would like to remark outstanding activities done by E-USOC in performing SODI-DCMIX2 and the positive conclusion of the DCMIX2 experiments, as also positively acknowledged by the science community. The Agency congratulates E-USOC to this success.”

Source: NASA

It is worth mentioning that the E-USOC team member José Miguel Ezquerro has been nominated to the prestigious Zeldovich Medal, a prize awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the COSPAR Space Scientific Committee to young scientists for their excellence.

DCMIX2 is the second of a series of five experiments. E-USOC has been designated by ESA as responsible for the SODI payload, and has already started working on the preparation activities for DCMIX3, foreseen for the end of 2014.

La entrada SODI-DCMIX2: From the ISS to the oil field aparece primero en E-USOC.

Source: NASA

Today, astronaut Bob successfully achieved the SODI-IVIDIL cell array and flash disk exchange activity. After the comissioning, some pictures were taken to check that everything was nominal on the experiment and the optics.

E-USOC team is ready to support operations with this new cell array, whose beginning is scheduled on December 1st. So far, we’re very pleased about the evolution of these operations, emphasizing the fantastic cooperation with the scientific team and our NASA partners.

We’d like to take this opportunity to comment that UPM has published a new article about our latest experiments.

La entrada SODI IVIDIL Operations: 2nd Cell Array Installed aparece primero en E-USOC.