Joshua Kutryk: Behind the scenes of Starliner and spacewalking

Lt. Col. Joshua Kutryk joined Canada's astronaut training program in 2017 after serving as an experimental test pilot and a fighter pilot in Cold Lake Alberta, leading a unit who was flight testing fighter aircraft. These days, Kutryk – fully certified as an astronaut in 2020 – is daily putting that pilot training to good use. He not only flies astronauts between key locations in T-38s as a part of supporting other missions, but he is also helping the agency get ready for Starliner missions. Boeing's Starliner hasn't yet come through on its goal of sending astronauts aloft. During an uncrewed test flight in December 2019, software issues and other problems prevented Starliner from reaching the International Space Station as planned. NASA and Boeing together investigated the dozens of issues, with a plan of returning to flight when feasible. That second test date is now expected no earlier than May 2022 due to a confluence of circumstances, including the coronavirus pandemic, unusual storms in Texas, and further technical issues found during redevelopment. But once Starliner is certified, a test crew will not be far behind – and that's where Kutryk comes in, running through procedures in simulations with NASA and Boeing. Artist illustration of the Boeing Starliner. Credit: Boeing. Kutryk told SpaceQ he is focusing most on the rendezvous and docking stage of the mission, when future Starliner crews arrive at the ISS. "We spend a lot of time initially coming up with those procedures, but then testing them and testing the technology. [With] the actual spacecraft hardware and software, we're constantly running that through different procedures, finding errors, finding bugs, and then trying to fix them." As a former test pilot, he noted, "I enjoy that kind of work," which goes into details such as assessing how the vehicle "handles" under pilot control, and the quality of the hardware-software interfaces. Kutryk said similar work is ongoing for the Orion spacecraft expected to bring astronauts to the Moon, including a Canadian aboard Artemis 2, although he isn't involved on the development side of Orion. Mission Control is where Kutryk has spent a lot of time during recent months, supporting spacewalks to do power upgrades on the International Space Station. Kutryk is "ground IV," meaning that he supports spacewalking astronauts (in NASA spacesuits) directly by voice as they perform procedures on the ISS, along with a person inside the space station who is assigned to the U.S. segment. (The Russians, the other major partner, manage their own spacewalks.) The work for each mission typically starts at least six or seven months before the actual spacewalk, which of course is highly subject to change as things arrive in space. Kutryk spends hours in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center using the same tools, positions and procedures that the astronauts will do during their extra-vehicular activity. Sometimes, Kutryk and the ground team may be the only ones able to simulate a spacewalk if an unexpected repair or other urgent change in the schedule comes while a crew is in orbit. This makes the ground IV role even more essential, Kutryk noted, as that person can picture very clearly how the spacewalkers will operate based on doing the exact same thing in the NBL. Canadian Space Agency astronaut candidate Joshua Kutryk is in a spacesuit prior to underwater spacewalk training in 2017 at NASA Johnson Space Center’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. Credit: NASA. "It's very complicated," Kutryk said of the work, "and I think that probably one of the most important parts about the mindset is preparation." He noted that all his work is done on behalf of a huge planning team, many of whom are standing by, ready to assist as needed during the six- to eight-hour spacewalk. "It's an extremely high-risk environment," Kutryk said of spacewalking, "and besides that, there can be major consequences, of course. So [we perform] careful execution. Slow and steady. We like to tell ourselves that slow is fast in that environment." EVAs never go perfectly, he said, as something is bound to happen with things such as the hardware. Often the teams can solve it on the spot, based directly on experience with people who built the hardware or from the astronauts, like Kutryk, who worked out procedures in the NBL. However, it's quite usual to have to solve the problem after the spacewalk. As the astronauts in space go back into the ISS to take off their suits, Kutryk usually strolls into another building at Johnson to start preparing for the next spacewalk opportunity. The walk takes minutes, but "by the time you get there, there's a team that has this [procedure] already set up, ready to go, and you're going to start working with that team to try to figure out another way to do it. So right now, you're sort of spring loaded to help and to solve technical problems." In a year or two, Kutryk noted, spacewalkers will be seeking to replace a joint on Canadarm2, and already procedures are ongoing for figuring out how best to do that spacewalk. (Canadarm2 first arrived in space in 2001 and was installed through a set of EVAs involving Chris Hadfield and NASA's Scott Parazynski, Parazynski then being one of the most experienced spacewalkers NASA had.) Canadarm2 work isn't the only thing ahead for Canada's space program, because as Kutryk noted, Canada is in the middle of a "dynamic time" with forthcoming flight assignments as NASA expands its spacecraft fleet and destinations. Canadians are expected to fly at least on Artemis 2 and on a long-duration mission "in Earth orbit," Kutryk said, which for now implies the ISS. Both are coming up around 2024 or 2025, which as Kutryk termed it, is "right around the corner" in terms of mission planning. (The ISS is approved through 2024; NASA is hoping for 2030, but that's assuming relations improve with Russia, which is under international sanctions due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.) As for Canada, however, the country is continuing its work as usual and expecting more missions thanks to the contribution of Canadarm3 for NASA's Gateway space station, which is allowing Canada to continue its work with NASA under the Artemis Accords. "We also know we have an additional Artemis and additional [space] station," Kutryk said of future missions. "There's a lot on the horizon. I would say that our plates are very full here, and we are getting ready for that."