NASA TV Is Live With Spacewalk Coverage for Cosmic Repair Work

Expedition 61 NASA Flight Engineer Andrew Morgan and Commander Luca Parmitano of ESA (European Space Agency) will begin a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station at about 6:50 a.m. EST Saturday, Jan. 25. NASA Television coverage of the spacewalk will begin at 5:30 a.m.

Watch the spacewalk on NASA TV and on the agency’s website.

This will be the ninth spacewalk for the Expedition 61 crew, more than in any other increment in the history of the station. The two astronauts will venture outside the International Space Station for the last planned spacewalk in a series to repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), a cosmic ray detector.

These spacewalks are considered the most complex of their kind since the Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions. The AMS originally was designed for a three-year mission and, unlike Hubble, was not designed to be serviced once in space. More than 20 unique tools were designed for the intricate repair work, which included cutting and splicing of eight cooling tubes to connect to a new cooling system, and connecting a myriad of power and data cables.

Watch the animation for today’s spacewalk:

Recap briefings from the beginning of the AMS repair series for more detail:

• AMS Overview briefing
• Spacewalk preview briefing

For more information about the AMS science and spacewalks, listen to the recent podcasts:

• Houston We Have a Podcast Ep 117: Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer: The Science
• Houston We Have a Podcast Ep 118: Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer: The Spacewalks
• Houston We Have a Podcast Ep 119: Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer: The Tools

Follow @space_station on Twitter for updates online. For more information about the International Space Station, visit www.nasa.gov/station.