Two astronauts embarked on a list of remaining maintenance tasks outside the International Space Station on Saturday (March 13), completing the work that was originally planned on previous space missions.
Expedition 64 crew members Victor “Ike” Glover and Mike “Hopper” Hopkins, both with NASA, braved the space station’s Quest aerial flight on Sunday (March 13) for the 6-hour, 47-minute extravicular activity (EVA). The spacewalk, which began at 8:14 a.m. EST (1314 GMT), was their third outing together since arriving at the station in November on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft ‘Resilience’.
The two astronauts’ first task, which was postponed from a spacecraft earlier this month, was to vent the remaining ammonia from two jump cables used to feed refrigerant into the station’s thermal control system. Glover and Hopkins worked to the left of the orbit of the orbital complex, releasing the ammonia from the hoses and storing one jumper and moving the other to the airlock’s side should it be necessary to find coolant leaks. in the future.
“I see exhaust,” Hopkins said after releasing the ammonia from the first jumper. “Oh yes, look like that!”
“It’s more than I thought,” he said a few moments later as the coolant injected into space.
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Because ammonia is toxic, the two spacewalkers stopped to examine each other’s space packs to make sure no ammonia ice crystals were attached.
‘I can see the top of your helmet, your lights, the PLSS [portable life support system]”Your shoulders, your arms – I do not see anything stuck,” Glover reported on Hopkins’ space suit. “It looks clean.”
After storing the jumpers and cleaning the tools they used to evacuate the ammonia, Glover and Hopkins parted ways to continue separate tasks outside the space station.
Glover, who was named extravehicular crew member 1 (EV1) and wore a red-striped spacecraft to identify, went to the Unity node to replace a failed wireless camera receiver with a new one.
Meanwhile, Hopkins, with a space suit without stripes like EV2, transferred to the Columbus Laboratory of the ESA (European Space Agency), where he worked to run electrical cables to the module’s external experimental platform Bartolomeo. Glover and Hopkins installed the same equipment during a spacewalk on January 27, but they encountered problems connecting some of the cables, preventing the platform from fully functioning.
“Paired!” exclaimed Hopkins after successfully connecting the first of the troublesome connections. “And the crowd goes wild!”
“Nice!” Glover replied.
“Great job! Wow! Excellent. Great news,” said ESA astronaut Andreas (Andy) Mogensen, who led Hopkins and Glover through their Mission Control work in Houston.
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While Hopkins continued on the second and third of four Bartolomeo cables, Glover completed the wireless transceiver replacement and proceeded to install a “booster” on the Quest airlock’s thermal enclosure to provide additional structural integrity and to to prevent the cloth lid from being slid open. when not in use.
“Hopper, there’s something in my right eye,” Glover told Hopkins. “I can see, but it’s annoying to keep it open.”
Glover continued to work on the hatch, but described the matter to Mission Control in more detail.
“It’s irritating when I keep it open. When I close it, I’m fine, slightly irritated and it’s watery. So it’s tears, it creates tears,” Glover says, adding that it looks like it’s blinking.
A few minutes later, Glover said his right eye was normal again.
Hopkins, meanwhile, had no joy in securing the fourth connection to the Bartolomeo platform. Despite his best efforts, including using a tether as a temporary handle to pull off the locking mechanism, Hopkins could not get the cable to his seat, and Mission Control recommended that he stand still.
Instead, Hopkins went on to reconfigure a ham radio antenna in the Columbus module. Astronauts use ham radio to connect with enthusiasts and students around the world as an educational and public tool.
As their final task for the spacewalk, Glover and Hopkins came together to lead two high-definition camera Ethernet cables to the gateway.
The spacewalk came to an end at 15:01 EST (2001 GMT) with the reprint of the Quest airlock.
Glover has now spent a total of 26 hours and 7 minutes on four space walks. Hopkins now reported 32 hours and 1 minute on his five EVAs. It was the 237th space step to support the composition and maintenance of the International Space Station, for a total time of 62 days, 3 hours and 54 minutes.
Robert Pearlman is a contributing author of Space.com and the editor of collectSPACE.com, a Space.com partner site and the leading space history news story. Follow collectSPACE on Facebook and Twitter at @collectSPACE. Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com.