There’s a cooling problem on station, and two astronauts are ready to head outside to fix it. NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio (a six-time spacewalker) and Mike Hopkins (a rookie) are expected to spend 6.5 hours “outside” starting at 7:10 a.m. EST (12:10 p.m. UTC) on Saturday. On robotics will be Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who has operated every bit of robotics currently on station.
Click to watch Expedition 38’s crew action live above. (If for some reason the stream is not working, an alternate link is available here.) We’ll have full coverage of the spacewalk after it happens, too.
For a walkthrough of what’s going to happen, NASA handily provided a video that you can see below the jump. We also have links to all of our coverage so far.
In a nutshell, here’s what happened: a cooling loop shut down automatically on station Dec. 11 when the loop got too cold. NASA traced the problem to a faulty flow control valve inside of the pump. As agency officials prepared for a spacewalk just in case, NASA attempted to fix the valve and then control an alternate one from the ground.
However, the station is entering a time when there will be a lot of sun shining on it, making dockings and spacewalks difficult. To be prudent, NASA decided to do a spacewalk now and replace the pump. To keep the astronauts safe if another spacesuit leak happens again, the agency has introduced soaker pads and snorkels to the spacesuits.
Here’s what’s going to happen during the three spacewalks that are scheduled for Saturday, Monday (Dec. 23) and if necessary, Wednesday (Dec. 25), according to lead U.S. Spacewalk Officer Allison Bolinger:
How did complex life emerge and evolve on the Earth and what does this mean…
In a world that seems to be switching focus from the Hubble Space Telescope to…
The world was much different in 1990 when NASA astronauts removed the Hubble Space Telescope…
BepiColombo is a joint ESA/JAXA mission to Mercury. It was launched in 2018 on a…
Walking along on the surface of the Moon, as aptly demonstrated by the Apollo astronauts,…
Some Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) consume vast quantities of gas and dust, triggering brilliant light…