A cataclysmic cosmic collision takes center stage in this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
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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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NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet are scheduled to exit the International Space Station’s Quest airlock Friday for a spacewalk to install and deploy the second of six new solar arrays to help power the orbiting laboratory.
Live coverage of the spacewalk will air on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app beginning June 25 at 6:30 a.m. EDT, with the crew members scheduled to set their spacesuits to battery power about 8 a.m., signifying the start of their spacewalk.
During the planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, Kimbrough and Pesquet will work on the far end of the left (port) side of the station’s backbone truss structure (P6) to upgrade the 4B power channel with the installation and deployment of an ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA).
Two of the new solar arrays arrived at the station in the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft as part of the company’s 22nd commercial resupply services mission to the station. The spacewalk follows two other recent spacewalks. On June 16, Kimbrough and Pesquet moved the first iROSA to a mounting bracket on the 2B power channel on the port 6 truss, where it was secured in its folded configuration. On June 20, the duo returned to the 2B power channel to complete installation and deployment.
The new solar arrays will augment the existing arrays, which are functioning well but have begun to show signs of expected degradation as they have operated beyond their designed 15-year service life. The first pair of solar arrays were deployed in December 2000 and have been powering the station for more than 20 years.
This will be the 241st spacewalk in support of space station assembly. Pesquet will be extravehicular crew member 1 (EV 1), with red stripes on his spacesuit, while Kimbrough will be extravehicular crew member 2 (EV 2), with an unmarked suit. 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 close as possible to the installation location.
The spacewalk will be the ninth for Kimbrough, and the fifth for Pesquet. The pair arrived for a six-month science mission at the space station April 24 with NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour.
Mark Garcia
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Four Expedition 65 crew members spent Thursday preparing for the third spacewalk to continue new roll-out solar array installation work. The other three International Space Station crew members continued with variety of space research.
Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet are scheduled to exit the space station shortly after they set their U.S. spacesuits to battery power at 8 a.m. EDT on Friday. The veteran spacewalking duo will work about 6.5 hours to begin installing a second ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) on the station’s Port-6 truss structure.
Both astronauts set up their spacesuits then readied their tools inside the U.S. Quest airlock just before lunchtime today. Afterward, they joined NASA Flight Engineers Megan McArthur and Mark Vande Hei and reviewed the procedures and robotics activities planned for Friday’s excursion. NASA TV will begin its live spacewalk coverage at 6:30 a.m. on both the agency’s website and the NASA app.
Commander Akihiko Hoshide started his day swapping samples inside the Materials Science Laboratory. Those samples, such as metals, polymers and alloys, are exposed to high temperatures possibly leading to new applications or new materials on Earth and in space. The three-time station visitor also investigated how microgravity affects bacteria and ways to counteract harmful changes for the Oral Biofilms experiment.
In the Russian segment of the orbiting lab, Roscosmos Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov partnered together and explored how long-term spaceflight impacts the blood circulation system. Novitskiy later worked in the Columbus laboratory module trapping clouds of particles for a plasma crystal experiment. Dubrov also researched piloting techniques that astronauts might use to maneuver future spacecraft and robots on planetary surfaces.
Norah Moran
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NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced four new additions to the agency’s senior staff Thursday.
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