Two astronauts are gearing up for an almost seven-hour-lengthy spacewalk outdoors the Worldwide House Station on Friday, with one in all them set to make historical past as the primary Arab astronaut to tackle the extravehicular exercise.
NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen and United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi are scheduled to start their spacewalk on April 28 at 9:15 a.m. ET to improve the house station’s energy era system, in response to NASA. The spacewalk shall be broadcast stay on NASA TV, in addition to the house company’s web site. You can too tune into the motion by way of the feed beneath. The stay feed will start at 7:45 a.m. ET.
The astronauts will spend round six and a half hours to proceed set up of {hardware} to assist future energy system upgrades to the ISS. The house station is being prepped for its subsequent set of roll-out photo voltaic arrays, that are going to be launched on board the subsequent SpaceX Dragon cargo mission in June.
“We’re making an attempt to get all of the cables prepared and making an attempt to pat down some insulation that’s not precisely in the proper configuration the way in which we would like it,” Dina Contella, ISS program operations integration supervisor, stated throughout a press name on Monday. “Simply typically getting ready issues like gear and staging gear within the excellent location in order that the June spacewalks can go off as deliberate.”
Throughout their spacewalk, the pair of astronauts may even retrieve the Radio Frequency Group (RFG) unit, a communications antenna, that shall be returned to Earth.
This shall be Bowen’s eighth spacewalk, whereas UAE astronaut Al Neyadi will enterprise outdoors the ISS for the primary time to mark a big second in historical past for the Emirati house business. Al Neyadi will grow to be the primary Arab astronaut to carry out a spacewalk and his extravehicular exercise will make UAE the tenth nation with a spacewalking astronaut.
Al Neyadi launched to the ISS on March 2 as a part of SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission. He was chosen by the Mohammed Bin Rashid House Centre (MBRSC) to embark on this orbital journey as a part of an settlement between NASA and Axiom House. The UAE astronaut has already made historical past because the fourth Arab in house and the primary Arab to go on an extended period mission.
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