Cosmonauts Exiting Station for Spacewalk Soon Live on NASA TV
Roscosmos spacewalker Sergey Prokopyev works outside the space station during the installation of an experiment airlock on the Nauka science module on May 3.
NASA coverage is underway for today’s spacewalk with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin. The duo will exit out of the International Space Station’s Poisk module about 10:45 a.m. EDT to attach three debris shields to the Rassvet module. They also will test the sturdiness of a work platform that will be affixed to the end of the European robotic arm attached to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module.
Coverage of the spacewalk is on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.
Prokopyev is wearing the Orlan spacesuit with red stripes, while Petelin is wearing the suit with blue stripes.
This will be the eighth spacewalk in Prokopyev’s career, and the sixth for Petelin. It will be the tenth spacewalk at the station in 2023 and the 267th spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
Cancer Therapy, Agriculture Studies One Day Before Spacewalk
Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin are pictured during a spacewalk on May 12 to deploy and activate a radiator on the Nauka science module.
Stem cells and space botany were the top research objectives for the Expedition 69 crew on Tuesday while still working to unpack a new U.S. cargo craft. Two cosmonauts are also “go” to exit the International Space Station on Wednesday for more upgrades on the orbital lab.
Life science in microgravity enables researchers to observe biological phenomena and achieve unique insights that would be impossible in Earth’s gravity environment. Scientists then apply the new knowledge potentially improving a variety of Earth-bound conditions including human health and agriculture.
Two experiments aboard the station today addressed new cancer therapies and ways to grow crops in space. NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio worked in the Kibo laboratory module servicing stem cell samples for the StemCellEX-H Pathfinder study that seeks to improve therapies for blood diseases and cancers such as leukemia. UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi harvested leaves from thale cress plants that are similar to cabbage and mustard for the Plant Habitat-03 experiment to learn how to grow food and sustain crews on future space missions.
NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg focused their day primarily on orbital maintenance. Bowen replaced air filters in the Destiny laboratory module while Hoburg monitored the performance of the advanced resistive exercise device for troubleshooting in the Tranquility module. The duo also had time set aside for some science activities as Bowen processed his blood samples for analysis and Hoburg tested station potable water samples for quality.
All four astronauts continued unpacking some of the 8,200 pounds of science and supplies delivered aboard the Cygnus space freighter on Friday. Cargo activities will be ongoing until late October when Cygnus departs the station completing a three-month orbital stay.
Two cosmonauts are ready to begin the 10th spacewalk at the station this year to install orbital debris shields and relocate hardware on the orbital outpost’s Roscosmos segment. Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin have completed their procedure reviews and Orlan spacesuit configurations and will begin a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk at 10:45 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. NASA TV, on the agency’s app and website, begins its live spacewalk coverage at 10:15 a.m.
Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev will support the two spacewalkers on Wednesday as he commands the European robotic arm (ERA) from inside the Nauka science module during the planned six-hour and 30-minute excursion. Fedyaev started his day joining Prokopyev and Petelin for the final spacewalk procedures review. He then spent the rest of the day configuring the ERA preparing it for hardware transfers during Wednesday’s spacewalk.
In this image from April 2023, NASA’s Moonikin Campos enjoys a quiet moment during acceleration sled testing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
Crew Unpacks New Science and Readies for Next Spacewalk
The Cygnus cargo craft approaches the International Space Station on Aug. 4 while orbiting 261 miles above the coast of the Garabogazköl Basin in Turkmenistan.
A U.S. cargo craft is open for business at the International Space Station and two cosmonauts are gearing up for a spacewalk on Wednesday. The Expedition 69 crew also kicked off the work week exploring high temperature physics and ways to make semiconductor crystals.
NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio worked throughout Monday unpacking some of the 8,200 pounds of science and supplies delivered aboard Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus space freighter on Friday. A couple of the new experiments include investigations looking at the formation of 3D neuron cell structures and an Astrobee robotic free-flyer to assist astronauts. News crew supplies include food, water, life support gear, and spacewalking hardware.
NASA Flight Engineer Woody Hoburg began his day on science maintenance work swapping out research gear and inspecting a rack in the Columbus laboratory module. He also serviced new Cold Atom Lab hardware inside the Destiny laboratory module. The Cold Atom Lab observes the quantum behavior of atoms chilled to temperatures near absolute zero. Hoburg also joined his crewmates and assisted Rubio as he unloaded cargo from inside Cygnus.
Two cosmonauts are in final preparations for the year’s 10th spacewalk out of the station set to begin at 10:45 a.m. on Wednesday. Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin will exit the Poisk airlock in their Orlan spacesuits and spend about six and a half hours installing micrometeoroid orbital debris shields and relocating hardware. The duo from Roscosmos spent Monday configuring communications gear and checking their spacesuits for leaks. This will be Prokopyev’s and Petelin’s sixth spacewalk together since their first on Nov. 17, 2022.
Roscosmos Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev spent his day primarily on life support tasks. He started Monday replacing heat exchanger fans in the Nauka science module. In the afternoon, Fedyaev worked on the Zvezda service module’s Elektron oxygen generator that splits reclaimed water into oxygen and hydrogen.
On Aug. 5, the Progress 83 spacecraft’s thrusters fired for three minutes, 16 seconds in a planned avoidance maneuver to provide the International Space Station an extra measure of distance away from a predicted track of a debris fragment.
The thruster firing occurred at 10:03 p.m. EDT, and the maneuver had no impact on station operations, including the trajectory phasing for either the upcoming Roscosmos Progress 85 cargo launch on Tuesday, Aug. 22, and SpaceX Crew-7 launch on Aug. 25.
In this image from June 2023, an engineer watches a development model rover during a test for NASA’s Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) technology demonstration in the Mars Yard at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
