Sometimes the people who look after a building fall a little behind. Sometimes the same thing happens with the people who look after the International Space Station.
Two astronauts are preparing for a spacewalk over the weekend to prepare for the upcoming replacement of solar power plants that will last 15 years and were installed on the ISS more than 20 years ago.
Flight engineers Kate Rubins and Victor Glover will step out of the ISS for the spacewalk. They will assemble and install equipment for the upcoming upgrades that, according to NASA, will both replace the current degrading solar power and increase the station’s available power from 160 kW to 215 kW. A SpaceX rocket will deliver new arrays later this year.
The flight engineers Kate Rubins and Victor Glover retire from the ISS on Sunday for the spacewalk.
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This will be the third spacewalk for both astronauts.
“The crew on the runway this week was very busy,” flight director Marcos Flores said during a news conference on Wednesday. “They worked hard to make sure all their procedures were reviewed and that all their training was completed.”
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The astronauts must retire on Sunday around 06:00 EST. The space walk is expected to take about six and a half hours.
The spacewalk on Sunday is the first of two upcoming maintenance spacewalks planned for the ISS. On March 5, Rubins will once again challenge Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi to export, among other things, ammonia. They will also install a “reinforcement” on the air cover of the air vents.
The spacewalk on Sunday is the first of two upcoming maintenance spacewalks planned for the ISS. (REUTERS / NASA / Handout)
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These are the 235th and 236th spacewalks of the ISS.
While some of the astronauts aboard the ISS were preparing for their upcoming spaceships, others, according to NASA, were unpacking four tons of cargo that arrived on a Northrup Grumman Cygnus recovery ship. Equipment delivered to the station contains supplies, new scientific hardware such as freezers for biological samples and other equipment.