One day in the life of astronauts

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Morning, the alarm rings, it's time to have breakfast and go to school or work. But this is us, mere mortals, but what about the astronauts, what do they do during the day?

- MCC! Our computer is out of order! What to do??

- Play on your spare! I repeat! Play on your spare! (earthy humor)

To understand what the cosmonauts are doing in orbit, we propose to live with you all day on the ISS and see what exactly the cosmonauts are doing.

06:00. Ascent (times in this schedule are given in GMT)

The rise of the main shift of astronauts occurs for the American Control Center at midnight, complicating the work of the NASA Flight Control Center and seriously increasing the load on the coffee machines. It is easier for the Moscow MCC, for them the ascent of astronauts at the station takes place at nine o'clock in the morning.

Morning on the International Space Station isn't necessarily a good morning. In addition to the fact that you wake up on the signal of an alarm clock, like millions of other people remaining on Earth, in space, you may be awaiting an awakening with a head sick from oxygen starvation. The thing is that, despite constant ventilation on board the station, the air on the ISS moves more slowly, without creating strong currents from drafts. As a result, it turns out that the carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronauts remains near the face.

Astronauts often complain of lack of sleep, nightmares and bad dreams, although they are given eight and a half hours to sleep (the dream of any Muscovite!). There are problems in orbit and falling asleep. Falling asleep in a sleeping bag tied to a wall in the absence of the usual gravity is not so easy. For safety reasons, the lights are not switched off completely. And if you wake up in the middle of the night with a desire to drink some water and go to the toilet, then it is much easier to force yourself to endure until the morning than, like space ghosts, half asleep to fly through the corridors of the ISS.

Yes, on the ISS, no one is particularly interested in whether you are an owl or a lark. Astronauts take only those "birds" that are ready to go to bed on command and wake up on an alarm clock at any time of the year.

06: 00–07: 30. Personal time, hygiene procedures, breakfast

The astronauts put on fresh underwear every three days. There are no washing machines in space, so shorts and T-shirts are taken into orbit in just such an amount. After use, all "disposable" clothing is taken to the Russian space "truck" "Progress", in which it will burn in the dense layers of the atmosphere. Shirts are changed once a month, socks are changed once a week.

No one has canceled the hygiene rules for astronauts, so in the morning everyone is washing, shaving, brushing their teeth and even washing their hair with a special compound that was once developed for hospital patients who cannot use the shower. Wiping with wet wipes and other procedures are not very convenient, but they are mandatory for a closed space in which from three to eight people live at a time.

07: 30–07: 45. Discussion with the Earth of the work of the coming day

As a rule, the schedule of work and the conduct of experiments at the station is approved in advance, however, a short discussion is required every morning, at which urgent tasks are set and changes in the schedule are discussed. The working week on the ISS lasts five and a half days, the remaining day and a half is considered a weekend. The weekend does not mean that absolutely no work is being done, it is just that there are no planned experiments and serious work on the schedule for this time.

07: 49–09: 45. Day job

The villagers know that they require constant work all the time. Either the hinges on the door need to be replaced, then the gutter has to be repaired, or the porch has to be tweaked. The ISS is the easiest to compare with such a house, only bigger and much more complicated. Almost all systems require regular testing, checking and repairing. Only on Earth, jokes about a clogged space toilet cause many smiles. For astronauts, this is a common routine.

Among the work carried out at the station, three main directions can be distinguished. The first is checking all systems, fixing them, or routinely replacing replaceable components. American astronauts even joked that working on the ISS is like a giant space car service: all systems require filter changes and regular testing.

The second type of work is loading and unloading. Several quintals of food, water and equipment for experiments arrive with space freighters. Unloading each of these "trucks" turns into a long and not fun task - you need to transfer all the boxes and packages one by one to the desired compartment and fix them there. You can't just throw food into the technological compartment and leave it flying in conditions of reduced gravity: then you simply won't be able to find anything. Space teaches you to be neat.

The third type of work activity is conducting scientific experiments. Most of all, this is similar to the quests asked from the Earth. The schedule of ongoing scientific work for Russian cosmonauts can be found on the page of the Federal Space Agency. Most of them sound more like forfeits assigned to the loser.

We decrypt. One flight engineer hurt another for eighty minutes and wrote down the results. Everything in the name of science! Experiments may sound or look ridiculous, but they are a very important part of cosmic life. Only with the help of dozens of such experiments will scientists on Earth be able to better answer the question: how does space affect humans? What should be done to ensure that the stay on the ISS does not adversely affect the health of the astronauts?

09: 45-13: 00. Sports: exercise bike, treadmill, strength training

It doesn't matter if it's a work day or a weekend, sporting events cannot be canceled. Faced with muscular atrophy, it was decided that the only effective prevention of it could only be a constant sports load. Therefore, on the ISS, sports are given from two to three hours a day. But already in a few hours after returning from a flight that lasted several months, the astronauts are able to walk.

Due to the disruption of the recovery processes, on average one and a half percent of the bone tissue of the astronauts is lost for each month of their stay in orbit. The lower vertebrae, pelvis and hips are especially affected. Bones become fragile, the processes occurring are similar to osteoporosis. It is still unclear whether prolonged exposure to zero gravity causes irreparable damage to the body. To combat the effects of atrophy, the ISS has two treadmills to which a person is attached with shock-absorbing cables.

13: 00-14: 00. Dinner

The era of space food tubes is a thing of the past forever. There are three types of food on the ISS: packets of cooked wet food (they just need to be heated), dehydrated food (it is poured with boiling water), and long-term food (hermetically sealed and eaten as is). Astronauts are also successfully growing plants in microgravity, but we are still far from large-scale crops in space.

The worst situation in orbit is with fresh vegetables and fruits. Sometimes they are sent a little to astronauts, but this is too expensive and ineffective. Although very tasty. It was the Progress MS-04 that got into the accident that was carrying the cargo of New Year's tangerines to the ISS, which, alas, did not reach the addressees.

Breakfast and dinner are not separately highlighted in the schedule, and the cosmonauts snatch time for them from their personal, both in the morning and in the evening.

15: 00-16: 30. Continuation of work

As a rule, astronauts work in pairs or triplets so as not to interfere with each other. Most of the work is not only difficult, but also requires serious preparation. As a result, it turns out that just going somewhere and taking equipment for an experiment turns into a very time-consuming task. Astronauts have to unpack the equipment, prepare it for work, then pack and attach it just as carefully.

One of the basic rules of life at the station: not a single thing should remain out of place. So if you see something flying in the video, rest assured that this was done exclusively for filming. After that, things will take their places in special nets and wardrobe trunks.

16: 30-17: 40. Communication with the Earth. Personal medical and psychological advice

The best way to prevent possible illnesses and ailments is regular prophylaxis. Almost every day, astronauts talk about their health to the attending physicians, talk to a psychologist who closely monitors their state of mind. The fact that the most prepared people get to the ISS does not mean at all that they cannot get sick.

17: 40-18: 35. Public relations works

The best way to show most people the benefits of working on the International Space Station is to regularly remind of yourself. Most of the videos produced by astronauts in orbit are part of the workflow. They try to make them interesting and informative.

Also, cosmonauts regularly have to get in touch with federal channels, or even with small space communication points, which are not so few around the world. For example, in St. Petersburg, such a point is equipped even in one of the large shopping centers of the Raduga shopping and entertainment complex, located on Kosmonavtov Avenue. There is a circle of space lovers working there, and from time to time this communication center gets a few minutes to communicate with astronauts to ask questions of interest.

18: 35–19: 30. Preparing for work the next day. Discussion with the Earth of the work of the past day

Before informing the Earth about the completion of most of the work, the cosmonauts once again check whether all things are fixed, whether all the parameters of the station are in operating mode. As at the beginning of work, several control centers on Earth have to talk about the past day at once. NASA, MCC, European ESA, Japanese JAXA - all of them participate in maintaining the ISS, and therefore add their tasks to the astronauts' schedule.

19: 30-21: 30. Personal time before bed

This includes dinner and the opportunity to do something personal. Now there are fewer problems with personal communication. There is a stable channel between the Earth and the ISS, and there is always the opportunity from a personal laptop to write a letter to the family, post a photo from the station on the Instagram social network, or just read the news.

Astronauts can ask the Control Center to broadcast television programs to them, but due to the heavy workload, this does not happen often. State elections, the opening of the Olympic Games, and the finals of major sports championships have this priority. Each of the astronauts has his own laptop with movies, e-books and a music player. Without these little things, life in orbit would become very difficult and joyless.

We can wait for the weekend when there will be more time. It can be spent on taking a beautiful photo from the panoramic module "Dome". Or just look from above at one of the 32 sunsets and sunrises that the inhabitants of the ISS manage to see during the day.

21: 30–06: 00. Dream

Goodnight. It's time to get into the bags and buckle up. Tomorrow will be another difficult, but very important day.

Test cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev uploads unique footage from the daily life of astronauts on the ISS to the network. A selection of the most interesting moments in the life of astronauts with the author's comments:

Oleg Artemiev, Russian test cosmonaut

cosmonaut corps of Roscosmos

Morning. Rise

"It's hard to get up after the weekend, but the country is calling to the bench, time in orbit is expensive."

Sports on the ISS

"Morning race in honor of the Day of the Airborne Forces on August 2, 2014."

Morning toilet: haircut and shaving on the ISS

"Sometimes, a short haircut is much more comfortable …"

Space shampoos: Russian "Aelita" and American "No Rinse"

Breakfast on the ISS

"Breakfast according to the menu on the 6th day of a 16-day diet: chicken meat with an egg, instant porridge" Forest berries ", coffee with sugar."

Work on the ISS

"Practice the skills of the person in charge of medical operations. The equipment can be used in emergency situations at risk to the life of the crew. To ensure the skills, the crew member reviews the materials on the equipment every month for an hour."

"Failure to perform medical service operations could potentially lead to the evacuation of the ISS and the loss of the life of a crew member."

Lunch on the ISS

"Lunch on the menu of the 15th day of a 16-day diet: noodle soup with meat, meat and vegetable hodgepodge, salmon in hot-sweet and sour sauce, Borodinsky bread, peach and blackcurrant juice, tea with sugar."

Lunch in honor of the day of the Navy

From the bottom of our hearts and sincerely congratulate our sailors on the coming

In the afternoon of the Navy, we are also not far from the sailors, we have a spaceship

and there are lifeboats … and there is a captain, and sailors, and cabins

and portholes, and stern, only there is no mast, but the submarine has it too

no, so we are closer to the class of submarines …"

Station Silver

"SPF is a means of eating. Station cutlery, which is on the ISS. This is all we can use. There are also rarities left over from the Shuttle program."

Gifts from the earth

"Together with the Union, gifts arrived from Earth on May 29."

Sometimes the ISS crew has a lucky chance to taste the taste of real, almost fresh, earthly food. Usually these are garlic, onions, tangerines, apples and other simple fresh products. This is possible when new manned and cargo ships arrive at the station. The amount of fresh food is small, so the cosmonauts are very careful about them, trying to keep them longer, so that there is enough until the next arriving ship.

Library on the ISS

The station has a small library, collected over 14 years of flight by various

crews. There are fiction and technical literature, plus a great digital resource that you can read on your iPAD."

Some of the products are stored very well, while others begin to sprout, as can be seen in the photo.

Private video conference with family from ISS

"Privat with family on Navy Day"

Family is always there

The clock that the astronaut uses on the ISS

The main onboard clock, at the central post (with red numbers), is used to check the time, and they, in turn, are adjusted by voice commands from the Earth.

To the right of the onboard clock is a white alarm-timer, which is used constantly for its intended purpose, as an alarm clock for getting up and reminding in experiments, is very convenient. There are two dozen of them at the station, if not more.

Watch, left to right. The first ones went out of order immediately after being taken out. Second, the battery ran out in the fourth month. Still others I wear all the time, the watch is good, but I can’t use it to the full. in the second month of the flight, the control head flew off, so the clock twists and the alarm goes off, which was set two months ago, so I get up before everyone else:) …

The fourth ones hang in the cabin, so like new ones, a reserve in case the third ones completely screw up or break. Fifths are used in spacewalks, cling to a spacesuit."