Preparations underway for a new spacewalk on the International Space Station
The Mission 70 crew is preparing for a new spacewalk planned for early November, with the aim of performing external maintenance of the International Space Station (ISS). The next spacewalk of the US Uniti orbital segment is planned now for Wednesday. Nov. 1, to give the ISS crew and flight control team time to prepare for the excursion.
Moghbeli and O’Hara’s first spacewalk
NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli will emerge from the station’s Quest hatch to remove an electronic box called the Radio Frequency Group, which was part of a communications antenna system. Additionally, they will replace one of 12 sets of roller bearings in the station’s alpha port solar rotary joint. These platforms allow the station’s solar panels to follow the Sun. The spacewalk was initially scheduled for Monday, October 30.
Preparations for spacewalk
America’s 89th spacewalk will be the first for Moghbeli and O’Hara. Moghbeli will be Extravehicular Activity Crew Member 1 and will wear a red-striped suit. O’Hara will be crew member 2 for the extravehicular activity and will wear a non-marking suit.
O’Hara and Moghbeli spent all day Thursday checking instruments and preparing the hardware they will take out of the Quest spacewalk’s maintenance hatch. The duo were joined by astronauts Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Satoshi Furukawa of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), who reviewed their spacewalk procedures during the afternoon.
Daily activities of the ISS crew.
Communication hardware installation and research maintenance.
O’Hara began his day installing communications hardware to support a study on laser technology. Moghbeli spent “a few moments maintaining the research, removing a faulty electronic unit from a scientific freezer and packaging it for storage. Mogensen analyzed air samples from the station and then transferred the collected data to a wearable health monitoring device.
Scientific experiments and health monitoring.
Furukawa had time during the day to focus on a variety of scientific activities, including examining the effects of microgravity on astronauts and setting up a biological microscope. The second-time visitor first took a cognitive test to measure how long-duration space missions affect a crew member’s brain structure and function. Next, Furukawa set up a microscope to observe how cells respond to weightlessness. Later, he performed a venous scan of Mogensen’s neck, shoulder and leg using the Ultrasound 2 device, with assistance from doctors on the ground.
Rest and post-spacewalk activity for cosmonauts
The three cosmonauts aboard the orbiting laboratory rested Thursday after a seven-hour, 41-minute spacewalk the previous day. Flight engineers Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and Konstantin Borisov woke up in the afternoon, carried out cleaning tasks after the spacewalk, then held a conference with specialists on the ground, Borisov collected air samples for analysis and configured life support equipment in the Nauka Science Module.
