Astronauts Kate Rubins and Soichi Noguchi conduct 4th career spacewalk

Kate Rubins, a NASA astronaut, and Soichi Noguchi, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut, started their spacewalk at 6:37 a.m. ET. It is predicted to final for six-and-a-half hours and is streaming dwell on NASA’s website.

The spacewalk will help with a continuation of upgrades for the orbiting laboratory.

Rubins simply carried out a spacewalk alongside fellow NASA astronaut Victor Glover Jr. on Sunday. Prior to that, her earlier two spacewalks occurred throughout her first rotation on the house station in 2016.

Noguchi has needed to wait just a little longer so as to add a fourth spacewalk to his career. He beforehand carried out three spacewalks throughout his shuttle flight in 2005 to assist with repairs to the house station.

Rubins is crew member 1 within the red-striped swimsuit and Noguchi is crew member 2 within the stripeless swimsuit. The new high-definition helmet digital camera on Rubin’s swimsuit supplies crystal clear views of the astronaut’s perspective as she works exterior of the house station.

Rubins and Glover started preparation for upcoming photo voltaic array upgrades by assembling and putting in modification kits on Sunday. While the station’s present photo voltaic arrays are nonetheless functioning nicely, they’re degrading. This degradation is predicted as a result of they solely have a couple of 15-year life and had been put in in December 2000 — so that they’ve outlasted the guarantee, so to talk.

Brand-new photo voltaic arrays might be positioned in entrance of six of the arrays presently on the station later this 12 months, boosting the station’s energy from 160 kilowatts to 215 kilowatts, in line with NASA. The photo voltaic arrays will start launching to the house station on a SpaceX automobile in June.

Rubins and Noguchi will end putting in photo voltaic array modification kits Friday earlier than shifting on to another duties, together with venting ammonia used within the house station’s thermal management system to reduce threat of launch within the ISS ambiance.

This is the 236th spacewalk within the historical past of the station.

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