Victor Glover, who has accumulated 3,000 flight hours in more than 40 aircraft, over 400 carrier arrested landings and 24 combat missions, took his first spacewalk on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021.
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NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover concluded their spacewalk at 1:16 p.m. EST, after 5 hours and 20 minutes. In the second spacewalk of the year, the two NASA astronauts completed work to replace batteries that provide power for the station’s solar arrays and upgrade several of the station’s external cameras. The duo finished their planned tasks ahead of schedule and also complete several get-ahead tasks in preparation for future spacewalks.
This spacewalk completes a four-year effort to upgrade the batteries of the International Space Station’s power system, replacing 48 aging nickel-hydrogen batteries with 24 new lithium-ion batteries and adapter plates. With the battery work complete, the focus turns to solar array augmentation.
Two additional spacewalks are planned for the near future. During the next spacewalk, Glover and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins will work outside the station to prepare its power system for the installation of new solar arrays to increase the station’s existing power supply. For a following spacewalk, Rubins and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi will continue upgrading station components. NASA will air a briefing and preview of the next two spacewalks after the dates are set.
This was the fourth spacewalk in Hopkins’ career, and the second for Glover.
Hopkins has now spent a total of 25 hours and 14 minutes spacewalking. Glover now has spent a total of 12 hours and 16 minutes spacewalking.
Space station crew members have conducted 234 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory. Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 61 days, 7 hours, and 7 minutes working outside the 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.
Mark Garcia
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Media are invited to attend NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s second Green Run hot fire – a test of the rocket’s core stage and all of its integrated systems before its flight on the Artemis I lunar mission.
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NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover have begun their spacewalk to finish a four-year effort to upgrade the International Space Station’s power system. They will install a final lithium-ion battery adapter plate on the port 4 (P4) truss and upgrade several external cameras.
The spacewalkers switched their spacesuits to battery power at 7:56 a.m. EST to begin the spacewalk, which is expected to last about six and a half hours.
Watch the spacewalk on NASA TV and on the agency’s website.
Eight years of research and development and 14 spacewalks to replace aging batteries are part of an overall electrical system upgrade to continue research after 20 years of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station. The batteries store power generated by the station’s solar arrays to provide power to the microgravity laboratory when the station is not in sunlight as it circles Earth during orbital night.
Hopkins is extravehicular crew member 1 (EV 1), wearing the spacesuit with red stripes, and using helmet camera #18. Glover is extravehicular crew member 2 (EV 2), wearing the spacesuit with no stripes and helmet camera #20.
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.
Mark Garcia
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The STS-107 crewmembers strike a ‘flying’ pose for their traditional in-flight crew portrait in the SPACEHAB Research Double Module aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.
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