Two astronauts are gearing up for some orbital upkeep work exterior the Worldwide House Station (ISS) throughout a uncommon all-woman spacewalk.
NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers are set to start their spacewalk on Thursday at 8 a.m. ET, exiting the area station for a deliberate six hours and 35 minutes. NASA will broadcast the spacewalk reside on NASA+ and the company’s YouTube channel. You can too tune in by way of the reside feed beneath.
Throughout their spacewalk, the astronauts will work to relocate an area station communications antenna and set up a mounting bracket forward of the set up of a further set of ISS Rollout Photo voltaic Arrays, additionally known as IROSA. The arrays will probably be put in throughout one other upcoming spacewalk. IROSA is designed to spice up energy technology functionality on the ISS by as much as 30%, which might improve the station’s whole obtainable energy from 160 kilowatts to as much as 215 kilowatts, in accordance with NASA. The pair may also work to improve the station’s energy techniques whereas tethered to the ISS.
Thus far, astronauts have performed 5 all-women spacewalks exterior the ISS. The primary befell practically six years in the past after a number of delays as a result of a poorly becoming spacesuit. Lastly, on October 18, 2019, NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir stepped exterior of the ISS for a historic spacewalk that cemented the position of girls in spaceflight. Earlier this yr, NASA astronaut Suni Williams broke the ladies’s document for whole spacewalking time after finishing a 5.5-hour spacewalk exterior the ISS, bringing her whole spacewalking time to 62 hours and 6 minutes.
Thursday’s spacewalk would be the first time astronaut Ayers has stepped exterior the ISS for extravehicular exercise and McClain’s third spacewalk.
