NASA TV is Live Now as Astronauts Ready for Spacewalk
NASA Television coverage of today’s spacewalk with NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet is now underway and is also available on the NASA app and the agency’s website.
The crew members of Expedition 65 are preparing to go outside the International Space Station for a spacewalk expected to begin at approximately 8 a.m. EDT and last about six and a half hours.
The crew is in their spacesuits in the airlock in preparation to exit the space station and begin today’s activities to install and deploy the second new ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) to upgrade the station’s power supply.
Kimbrough and Pesquet will be working near the farthest set of current solar arrays on the station’s left (port) side, known as P6, to upgrade the 4B power channel. First they will prepare and release the new solar array from the carrier in which it arrived aboard the SpaceX cargo Dragon.
Pesquet will attach himself to the end of the station’s robotic Canadarm2, from where he and Kimbrough will work together to maneuver the array out of the carrier. Operating from inside the station, NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, with NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei serving as backup, will command the robotic arm to maneuver Pesquet and the array as far out on the station as it can reach, where he will then pass the array to Kimbrough. Pesquet will reposition himself to receive the array from Kimbrough for its final installation location. The crew members will work together to install it, rotate it to its deploy location, position the mounting bolts, install the electrical cables, and drive the final two bolts to extend the solar array to its fully deployed position.
Leading the mission control team today is Flight Director Pooja Jesrani with support from Kieth Johnson as the lead spacewalk officer.
Learn more about station activities by following @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
Norah Moran
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