NICER Caddy Preparation

NICER’s mechanical engineering lead Steve Kenyon holds one of the mission’s fully assembled patches in a lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The labels on the patch read “Patch S/N 17” at the top and “LCK” at the bottom. At the base of the patch, the tab that will lock it into place is visible.

Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts

Alt text: A man holds a black triangular wedge with a white sticker on the top.

Image description: A man wearing blue gloves holds a black triangular wedge with a white sticker on the front. The sticker on the lid reads “Patch S/N 17” at the top and “LCK” at the bottom. The man rests his elbows on a desk cluttered with tools and other items. The background shows a lab space filled with tool cabinets and other odds and ends.

The NICER patches are inserted into a caddy — a rectangular aluminum frame that houses two of the mission’s spare sunshades — in a lab at Goddard. The sunshades each hold six patches. An astronaut will take the full caddy with them during the repair and insert five patches into the sunshades on NICER to cover up the most damaged areas.

Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts

Alt text: The NICER patches rest in their caddy.

Image description: At the center of this photograph is a shiny, gray, rectangular frame. Inside the frame are two circles segmented into sixths. Each circle contains six triangular black wedges with stickers on the top. The stickers are labeled: “Patch S/N” followed by a number at the top and “LCK” at the bottom. The frame rests on a table on top of a paper towel. Plastic bags, tools, and other odds and ends are clustered on either side of the paper towel. In the upper left-hand corner, a blue-gloved hand rests on the desk and holds a shiny gray tool. A pair of legs is seen top of frame, beyond the edge of the table.

Keith Gendreau, NICER’s principal investigator, conducts a “fit check” for the mission’s patch kit in a lab at Goddard. He inserts all 12 patches into the caddy, ensuring they fit securely and can be removed smoothly. Astronauts will install five of the patches during a spacewalk.

Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts

Alt text: A man holds a cylindrical tool in a lab.

Image description: A man in a green shirt holds a cylindrical tool in one hand. He’s looking down at a gray rectangular frame. Inside the frame are two circles, each segmented into sixths. The man is inserting black wedges into the segments. The wedges have white stickers on top. The frame rests on a table cluttered with plastic bags and other odds and ends. The background shows a busy out-of-focus lab space.

Engineers check that astronauts will be able to latch the NICER caddy to their spacesuits in a clean room at Goddard. Christensen Hardcastle clips two metal latches to a hole in the NICER caddy. In the background, from left to right, Lucas Widner (KBR Wyle), Steve Kenyon, Keith Gendreau, and Lauren Maples (KBR Wyle) look on.

Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts

Alt text: Engineers work on the NICER patch kit.

Image description: A man in a blue lab coat and blue gloves connects two tether hooks to a small gray metal box. He’s wearing glasses and hairnets over his head and mouth. The metal box rests on a gray table in a small clean room. Four figures, dressed similarly, look on in the background. Behind them heavy plastic sheets hang from the ceiling.

A closer view of the above.

Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts

Alt text: Engineers working on the NICER patch kit.

Image description: A man in a blue lab coat and blue gloves connects two heavy metal latches to a small gray metal box. Only his torso, arms, and hands are in frame. The metal box rests on a paper towel on a gray table in a small clean room. Two figures, dressed similarly, look on in the background.

Maples, a spacewalk flight controler from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houson, uses a T-handle tool on a patch in the NICER caddy to ensure all 12 can be inserted and removed smoothly. The tool is part of the existing astronaut toolkit on the space station, and the NICER patches were designed to fit its specifications. The so-called fit check was conducted in a clean room at Goddard.

Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts

Alt text: A woman uses a T-shaped tool in a lab.

Image description: A woman in a blue lab coat, blue gloves, and a hairnet adjusts a T-shaped tool. The bottom of the tool is inserted into the top of a black wedge. The wedge is one of five in a circular structure. Two of the circular structures sit inside a gray metal box. This is the NICER caddy. The caddy rests on a table in a cleanroom. Three figures, also in labcoats, gloves, and hairnets, look on.

Gendreau cleans the empty NICER caddy in a cleanroom at Goddard. He looks for remaining detritus with a blacklight. The attachment at the end of the caddy is called the micro square fixture. It’s one of the ways an astronaut can attach the caddy to their spacesuit.

Credit: NASA/Scott Wiessinger

Alt text: A man cleans a metal box in a lab.

Image description: A man leans over a gray metal box in a lab. He’s wearing a blue lab coat, blue gloves, glasses, and hairnets over his mouth and head. In one hand, he holds a white swab. In the other, he holds a blacklight. He peers into the interior of the box.

One NICER patch sits in the kit’s packing case in a cleanroom at Goddard. Each patch was cleaned and then wrapped in a plastic bag before being packed in to the case.

Credit: NASA/Scott Wiessinger

Alt text: A NICER patch in a packing case.

Image description: A rectangular white foam case rests on a gray table. Twelve roughly triangular sections have been cut out of the interior of the foam. One black wedge with a white label has been inserted into one of the cutouts. Another block of foam is attached along the long end by two straps. Also on the table is a white cloth and a cleaning swab.

Kenyon and Gendreau place the caddy in a plastic bag before adding it to the packing case in a cleanroom at Goddard. This is the last time the patch kit will be handled before it’s unpacked by astronauts on the space station.

Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts

Alt text: Two men in a lab.

Image description: Two men in blue lab coats, blue gloves, and nets over their mouths and heads stand in a lab. The man on the right wears yellow blacklight glasses. He’s putting a gray metal rectangle into a clear plastic bag. The other man watches.

Gendreau and Kenyon pack the caddy into the foam case in a cleanroom at Goddard.

Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts

Alt text: Two men in a lab.

Image description: Two men in blue lab coats, blue gloves, and hair and beard nets stand in a lab. One man leans on a table, pressing a hand to the top of a gray rectangle snuggly packed in a white foam box. The other man, wearing yellow blacklight glasses, looks at something out of frame and rests his hands on the table.

Kenyon examines a NICER patch using a blacklight in a cleanroom at Goddard.

Credit: NASA/Scott Wiessinger

Alt text: A man in a dark lab uses a blacklight.

Image description: A man in a lab coat, gloves, and hairnets over his mouth and head looks at a black wedge with a black light. The room is dark, but red light filters in from windows in the background. The man wears safety glasses.

In this video, Keith Gendreau, Steve Kenyon, Lucas Widner, Lauren Maples, and Christensen Hardcastle conduct tests on the NICER patch kit in a clean room at Goddard.

0:00 Gendreau, Widner, Maples, and Hardcastle enter the clean room and begin to put on their clean suits. 0:20. Hardcastle examines the NICER caddy, which will hold the patches. He checks that the micro square fixture at the end fits different attachments found on an astronaut’s spacesuit. 0:44 Gendreau points out some features of the sunshades inside the caddy, which are flight spares from the NICER payload. 0:59 Widner checks that the caddy can be tethered to a spacesuit. 1:32 Hardcastle removes the tethers. 1:49 Widner explains to the NICER team how the tethers will be used during the spacewalk. 2:03 Hardcastle removes the tether again. 2:08 Widner checks that the T-handle tool can pick up, insert, and lock patches into the caddy. 2:33: Widner continues placing patches into the caddy. 2:41 Hardcastle checks the caddy and patches for sharp edges while wearing a special pair of gloves. 3:45 Shot of the T-handle tools on a lab bench. 3:51 Maples removes the caddy from its foam packing case and places it on the lab bench. 4:11 Widner shakes the caddy gently to check to see if there are any loose parts. 4:36 Widner flips the caddy upside down and shakes it again. 4:57 Widner inserts patches into the caddy using the T-handle tool. 5:33 Widner removes the patches from the caddy using a shorter version of the T-handle tool. He hands them to Hardcastle for a sharp-edge check, who then places them in the foam packing case. 6:05 A patch with the T-handle tool inserted rests on the lab bench. 6:10 Widner points out features of the T-handle tool. 6:18 Maples removes patches from the packing case and inserts them into the caddy. 6:44 Hardcastle examines the packing case and takes notes. 6:49 Slow motion shots of the team standing around the table with the caddy. 7:20 Slow motion shot of Widner shaking the caddy. 7:42 Slow motion shot of Kenyon and Gendreau looking at the patches assembled on the lab table.

Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts and Scott Wiessinger