One in every of NASA’s two caught astronauts received a a lot welcomed change of surroundings Thursday, stepping out on her first spacewalk since arriving on the Worldwide Area Station greater than seven months in the past.
Suni Williams, the station’s commander, needed to sort out some overdue out of doors restore work, alongside colleague Nick Hague. They emerged because the orbiting lab sailed 420 kilometers above Turkmenistan.
“I am popping out,” Williams radioed.
Plans known as for Williams to drift again out subsequent week with Butch Wilmore.
Williams and Wilmore launched aboard Boeing’s new Starliner capsule final June on what ought to have been a weeklong check flight. However Starliner bother dragged out their return, and NASA ordered the capsule to come back again empty.
Then SpaceX delayed the launch of their replacements, that means the 2 will not be residence till late March or early April — 10 months after launching.
Strolling among the many stars
It was the primary spacewalk by NASA astronauts since an aborted one final summer season. U.S. spacewalks have been placed on maintain after water leaked into the airlock from the cooling loop for an astronaut’s swimsuit. NASA mentioned the issue has since been mounted.
This was the eighth spacewalk for Williams, who has lived on the area station earlier than, and the fourth for Hague.
Hague and Williams have been set to switch station {hardware}, resembling a planar reflector, and restore the station’s Neutron Star Inside Composition ExploreR (NICER) C-ray telescope. A part of that course of consists of putting wedge-shaped patches in sure spots on the telescope to cut back undesirable daylight from interfering with the X-ray measurements it takes.
The spacewalk, which began at 8 a.m. ET, will final round 6½ hours, and is the 273rd spacewalk for ISS upkeep.
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