Astronauts Prepare for NICER Repair Training

Astronaut Don Pettit adjusts the communications cap he wears under his helmet before a training run in the NBL at Johnson on May 16, 2024. Astronaut Jessica Meir looks on.

Credit: NASA/Jose Guzman

Alt text: An astronaut adjusts his communications cap.

Image description: A woman in a black shirt stands on the left side. She’s looking at a man in a white spacesuit. He’s using both hands to adjust his white and black cap, which covers both ears. Behind them is a large pool.

Astronaut Nick Hague prepares to be lowered by crane into the pool at Johnson’s NBL on May 16, 2024. Don Pettit stands on the platform behind him.

Credit: NASA/Jose Guzman

Alt text: Astronauts standing on a platform attached to a large crane.

Image description: A man in a spacesuit stands on a platform below a large yellow crane. Just visible is another man in a spacesuit standing with his back to him. Several people stand to the left and behind the platform, looking on. They’re in a large building with a high ceiling.

Astronaut Nick Hague prepares for a training run in Johnson’s NBL on May 16, 2024.

Credit: NASA/Jose Guzman

Alt text: A man in a spacesuit

Image description: A close-up of a man wearing a spacesuit. His face is visible through his helmet, which takes up two-thirds of the photo. He looks pensive. His hands rest on his chest in the bottom third of the photo.

Astronaut Don Pettit prepares for a training run in Johson’s NBL on May 16, 2024.

Credit: NASA/Jose Guzman

Alt text: A man in a spacesuit.

Image description: A close-up of a man wearing a spacesuit. His face is visible through his helmet, which takes up two-thirds of the photo. He’s wearing glasses. An American flag patch is visible on his shoulder. Behind him is a blue pool.

A crane lowers astronauts Nick Hague and Don Pettit into the pool at Johnson’s NBL on May 16, 2024.

Credit: NASA/Jose Guzman

Alt text: Two men in spacesuits are lowered into a pool.

Image description: Two men stand on a platform partially submerged up to their ankles in a pool. Both wear spacesuits and stand back-to-back. The man facing the camera smiles. People watch in the background.

Astronauts Nick Hague and Don Pettit are almost fully submerged in this photo taken May 16, 2024, at Johnson’s NBL.

Credit: NASA/Jose Guzman

Alt text: Two men in spacesuits nearly submersed in a pool.

Image description: Two men wearing spacesuits are almost totally submerged in a pool. They stand back-to-back on a platform that’s being lowered by a crane out of frame. The man facing the camera has his helmet light on and looks up. The man behind him is waving to onlookers.

Charles Baker, a NICER team member and engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, watches the NICER repair training run at Johnson’s NBL on May 16, 2024.

Credit: NASA/Jose Guzman

Alt text: A man looks up from a computer.

Image description: A man in a long-sleeve pink shirt with a blue lanyard around his neck looks up from his computer. He’s wearing glasses. The wall behind him is glass, and another set of table and chairs is visible in the space behind it.

NICER team members and others look on as astronauts complete a training run at the NBL at Johnson on May 16, 2024.

Credit: NASA/Jose Guzman

Alt text: People in a room looking up at a wall of windows and screens.

Image description: People at two rows of tables sit with their backs to the camera. They look at a wall with large windows with a line of screens above. The screens show astronauts in a pool. Facing the wall are three additional tables with monitors showing the same view as those above. Visible through the windows is a large space with two yellow cranes.

On the desk, from left to right, rest a 3D-printed model of NICER, a spare NICER sunshade bolted to a plate with test patches installed, and a tin holding a spare NICER thermal shield. These items were used for demonstrations for astronaut trainings over several exercises at Johnson’s NBL. This photo was taken during a practice run on May 16, 2024.

Credit: NASA/Jose Guzman

Alt text: Items on a table.

Image description: Three items rest on a black tabletop. The leftmost item is a NICER model, a rectangular shape constructed of green, red, and gold plastic. The center item is a cylinder bolted to a metal square. The cylinder is white on the outside and black on the inside. It’s divided into six segments. Two wedges with white stickers on the top have been inserted into two of the segments. The rightmost item is a gold tin, which looks like it could hold an old film reel. In the background is a row of monitors showing a blurry feed from a pool.

This video shows astronauts Don Pettit and Nick Hague attending a so-called 1-G briefing to learn about their NBL tasks for the following day. Spacewalk flight controllers Lucas Widner (KBR) and Lauren Maples (KBR) led the meeting, with NICER team members Keith Gendreau, Steve Kenyon, Elizabeth Ferrara (Univ. Maryland, College Park), and Richard Koenecke (Adnet Systems, Inc.) in attendance.

0:00 Hague, Pettit, Gendreau, Kenyon, Maples and Widner sit around a table and discuss the upcoming NBL tasks. 0:11 Closer shot of Hague and Pettit listening to the briefing. 0:24 Hague and Pettit examine mockups of the NICER patches, sunshades, and caddy under Widner’s direction. 0:33 View of the 1-G briefing from another angle, behind the seated row of NICER team members. 0:46 Hague holds a flight space of the NICER thermal shields. 1:08: Gendreau talks to Hague and Pettit about the damage to NICER’s thermal shields. 1:35 Shot of Hague’s hand holding a 3D model of the NICER telescope. 1:51 Widner talks about the repair process. 2:00 Shot of the NICER mockups and flight spares used in the 1-G briefing. 2:06: Kenyon uses the 3D NICER model to demonstrates how it moves on the space station. 2:40 Ferrara demonstrates how the team labeled the positions for the NICER patches by counting rows and columns on the 3D model.

Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz