• Question: Do you take night shifts and how long is your shift?

    Asked by 364tch48 to Andrea, Charlie 🚀, Col Op, Kirsty, Vinita on 12 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by 643tch48.
    • Photo: Kirsty Lindsay

      Kirsty Lindsay answered on 12 Jun 2016:

      I don’t have any night shifts- wahoo!

      I do have long days sometimes, but only occasionally.

    • Photo: Andrea Boyd

      Andrea Boyd answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      I used to take regular nightshifts in the previous two control rooms I worked in. The science/payload control centres work nightshifts, remote controlling science while astronauts sleep, and so does the Flight Director and STRATOS. Since I became Eurocom though, we’re only on console when the astronauts are awake, as there’s noone to talk to when they sleep. They work on GMT (1 or 2 hours different from Central Europe depending on daylight savings) so – after 5 years of constantly changing my circadian rhythm – no more nightshifts! Eurocoms can take them still but barely ever – just on special occasions like when the Soyuz docks or undocks in the middle of the night.

      Poor NASA and JAXA guys though – thanks to the timezone they’re always working prime time nightshifts!

    • Photo: Columbus Operations

      Columbus Operations answered on 23 Jun 2016:

      Running on a 24/7 basis, each of our 3 shifts (we call them “Orbit”) covers 8 hours. The shift handover may take another 30min or so.

      The night shift is Orbit 3, from 10pm to 6am, all local times. We keep these, no matter if we have daylight savings time or not.

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