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Cosmonauts and Astronauts Ramping Up for a Pair of Spacewalks

Two spacewalks are planned in the next several days outside the International Space Station for the Expedition 68 crew. Meanwhile, science was still ongoing at the beginning of the week with space botany and physics work aboard the orbiting lab.

On Wednesday at 9:20 p.m. EST, Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin will exit the Poisk module’s airlock in their Orlan spacesuits. They will spend about seven hours transferring a radiator from the Rassvet module to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. Flight Engineer Anna Kikina will be inside Nauka supporting the spacewalking duo by operating the European robotic arm.

Prokopyev and Petelin spent Monday getting their suits and the Poisk airlock ready for Wednesday’s excursion. The duo configured their spacesuits’ life support and communications components then collected and organized the tools they will use during the spacewalk. They also closed the hatch and performed leak checks on the ISS Progress 82 resupply ship which is docked to Poisk just outside its airlock. Kikina primarily spent the day on life support and ventilation maintenance.

NASA Flight Engineers Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio will have their spacewalk together on Monday, Dec. 19. They will install their second roll-out solar array, or International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA), on the Port-4 (P4) truss segment. They installed their first iROSA on Dec. 3 on the station’s Starboard-4 truss segment opposite of the P4.

The two NASA astronauts spent some time on Monday reviewing the iROSA installation procedures and discussing the spacewalk with mission controllers on the ground. Flight Engineers Nicole Mann of NASA and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) also participated in the review and the ground conference and will assist the two spacewalkers next week.

Cassada kicked off the workweek watering dwarf tomatoes growing inside the Veggie space botany facility for the Veg-05 experiment. Wakata transported physics research hardware from the Cygnus resupply ship to a research rack inside the Kibo laboratory module. Rubio collected carbon dioxide samples from life support hardware. Mann also assisted the cosmonauts helping them get their tools ready for Wednesday’s spacewalk.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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Mark Garcia

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Botany, Physics, and Spacesuits Wrap Up Station Workweek

The workweek wrapped up with the Expedition 68 crew working on botany and physics hardware aboard the International Space Station. Spacesuit maintenance is still proceeding as the astronauts and cosmonauts continue preparing for more spacewalks before the end of the year.

Growing fresh food off the Earth is a key mission objective as NASA and its international partners plan longer human missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. NASA Flight Engineer Josh Cassada spent all day on Friday configuring hardware and installing components on the Veggie space botany facility located in the Columbus laboratory module. Soon the plant growth unit will host a small crop of dwarf tomatoes growing for the Veg-05 study investigating ways to maintain a continuous fresh-food production system in space.

NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio was working in the Microgravity Science Glovebox at the end of the day exchanging samples for a fluid physics study. The investigation explores the coarsening and coalescence of foams in weightlessness with potential applications for the firefighting, petroleum, and medicine industries among others.

Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) took turns with Rubio on Friday collecting blood and urine samples, processing them, then stowing them in science freezers for later examination. Wakata also cleaned and serviced components inside the Electrostatic Levitation Furnace, an experimental facility that enables safe research of high temperature physics above 2,000 degrees Celsius.

Several more spacewalks are scheduled before the end of the year. The first is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 14, and a second for Dec. 19. Both spacewalks will be broadcast live on NASA TV, on the agency’s app and website.

NASA Flight Engineer Nicole Mann was back on spacesuit duty on Friday removing and replacing life support components inside the Extravehicular Mobility Units, or EMUs. She later removed a small satellite deployer from inside the Kibo laboratory module’s airlock.

Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin partnered once again checking their Orlan spacesuits for leaks and reviewing procedures for the Dec. 14 spacewalk. The duo also took turns working out on the station’s exercise bike while attached to sensors for a fitness evaluation. Flight Engineer Anna Kikina wrapped up her week transferring water and repressurizing nitrogen from the docked ISS Progress 82 resupply ship to tanks aboard the space station.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly video highlights at: http://jscfeatures.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Get The Details…

Mark Garcia

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