NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron are scheduled for a spacewalk on Thursday, Dec. 2.
After receiving additional information about a late notification debris event on Monday, NASA determined the orbit of the debris does not pose a risk to a scheduled spacewalk by Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron or to International Space Station operations. Delaying the spacewalk provided an opportunity for NASA to evaluate the risk from the debris notification. The spacewalk to replace a faulty antenna system on the station’s truss structure is now planned for Thursday, Dec. 2.
NASA Teams Delay Spacewalk After Debris Notification
NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron were slated to perform a spacewalk to replace a faulty antenna system.
The evening of Monday, Nov. 29, NASA received a debris notification for the International Space Station. Due to the lack of opportunity to properly assess the risk it could pose to the astronauts, teams have decided to delay the spacewalk planned for Tuesday, Nov. 30 until more information is available. The space station schedule and operations are able to easily accommodate the delay of the spacewalk. The latest information and future spacewalk dates will be shared on https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation.
NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron will go on a spacewalk on Tuesday for station maintenance work.
NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron are scheduled to exit the International Space Station’s Quest airlock Tuesday for a spacewalk that will focus on replacing an S-band Antenna Subassembly (SASA) with a spare already available on the station’s truss structure.
Live coverage of the spacewalk will air on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app beginning Nov. 30 at 5:30 a.m. EST, with the crew members scheduled to set their spacesuits to battery power about 7:10 a.m., signifying the start of their spacewalk.
Marshburn and Barron will work at the Port 1 (P1) truss structure, where the antenna is mounted. The antenna recently lost its ability to send signals to Earth via NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. Although its degradation has had limited impact on station operations, mission managers decided to install a new antenna to ensure communications redundancy. The space station has additional low-rate S-band systems, as well as the high-rate KU-band communications system that relays video.
During the planned six-and-a-half hour spacewalk, Marshburn will position himself at the end of the Canadarm2 robotic arm, working in tandem with Barron. Astronaut Matthias Maurer of ESA (European Space Agency) will control the robotic arm from inside the space station.
This will be the 245th spacewalk in support of space station assembly. Marshburn will be extravehicular crew member 1 (EV 1), with red stripes on his spacesuit, while Barron will be extravehicular crew member 2 (EV 2), with an unmarked suit.
This will be the fifth spacewalk for Marshburn, the first spacewalk for Barron, and the 13th spacewalk on the space station this year. The pair arrived for a six-month science mission at the space station Nov. 11 with NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission aboard the Crew Dragon Endurance.
The space station was pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during its departure on Nov. 8, 2021. View the latest photographs of the orbiting lab here.
Two NASA astronauts are preparing for a spacewalk on Tuesday to replace a faulty antenna system on the International Space Station. Flight Engineers Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron will exit the orbiting lab tomorrow after setting their U.S. spacesuits to battery power at 7:10 a.m. EST signifying the start of their spacewalk.
The duo was joined on Monday by three of their fellow Expedition 66 flight engineers collecting tools and reviewing procedures planned for the six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk. NASA astronaut Raja Chari partnered with Marshburn and Barron gathering and organizing tethers, cameras, and pistol grip tools. The three astronauts then joined NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer for a procedures conference with spacewalk specialists on the ground.
Chari and Vande Hei will be on duty throughout Tuesday monitoring the two astronauts during the spacewalk and helping them in and out of their spacesuits. Maurer will be at the controls of the Canadarm2 robotic arm assisting the spacewalkers at the Port-1 truss structure worksite. NASA TV begins its live coverage on Tuesday at 5:30 a.m. on the agency’s website, and the NASA app.
The station’s two cosmonauts, Flight Engineer Pyotr Dubrov and Commander Anton Shkaplerov, spent their day on a variety of space research and maintenance tasks in the orbiting lab’s Russian segment. Dubrov photographed the condition of the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module following the Prichal module’s docking on Friday. Shkaplerov swapped out life support hardware and began unpacking cargo from the newly arrived Prichal docking port.
Russia’s new Prichal docking module arrives at the station providing additional docking ports and fuel transfer capabilities.
The five-ton Prichal docking module arrived at the International Space Station at 10:19 a.m. EST, propelled by a modified Russian Progress propulsion compartment. They docked to the Nauka module on the Earth-facing side of the Russian segment two days after lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday, Nov. 24 at 8:06 a.m. EST (6:06 p.m. Baikonur time). The spacecraft were flying about 260 miles over Ukraine at the time of docking.
To make room for Prichal, the uncrewed Progress 78 cargo craft undocked from Nauka at 6:23 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 25, and burned up upon reentry in the Earth’s atmosphere later that morning.
Prichal, named for the Russian word for pier, has five available docking ports to accommodate multiple Russian spacecraft and provide fuel transfer capability to the Nauka module. Named for the Russian word for “science,” Nauka launched to the space station in July.
The modified Progress transport spacecraft that guided Prichal to the station will remain in place until late December.
