Methodological approaches to emergency recovery onboard the International Space Station

Keeping parameters of the atmosphere within a manned space complex close to those on Earth is a pre-requisite for the crew’s being able to live and work in space. Any relatively small change in atmospheric parameters may pose a threat to the life of the crew and calls for an immediate response to the situation. The emergencies which are to be handled exclusively by the crew of the manned space complex include depressurization of pressurized volumes, fire and toxic contamination of the atmosphere. Crew actions in such situations are governed by special flight procedures. The paper describes main assumptions and requirements taken as a basis for developing crew procedures for response to emergencies onboard the International Space Station (ISS), as well as methodological techniques embodies in the flight procedures, which make it possible to optimize crew emergency response taking into account the locations of the modules and crew rescue vehicles within the Russian Segment of the ISS. Key words: manned space station, emergency, International Space Station