By NASA
June 15, 2023
NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Woody Hoburg points the electronic camera towards himself and takes an out-of-this-world “space-selfie” throughout a three-minute and six-hour spacewalk to install a roll-out solar array on the International Space Stations truss structure on June 9, 2023. Credit: NASA
Wednesday, June 14 was a busy day for the Expedition 69 crews astronauts and cosmonauts as they continued preparing for two different spacewalks at the International Space Station (ISS). The very first spacewalk will see 2 astronauts install another roll-out solar range on Thursday, June 15. The second spacewalk will happen a week later when 2 cosmonauts replace hardware and perform photographic examinations.
Mission managers offered the “go” for Thursdays spacewalk with NASA astronauts Woody Hoburg and Stephen Bowen. NASA Television begins its live broadcast of the spacewalk at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday on the companys app and site.
Hoburg and Bowen began Wednesday preparing their spacesuits inside the Quest airlock where they will leave the station into the vacuum of space on Thursday. After lunchtime, the duo organized their spacewalking tools and tethers inside Quest with support from NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio. Lastly, the three NASA astronauts signed up with Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) for a final review of the spacewalk treatments and robotics activities required to support the solar selection installation job.
2 cosmonauts are likewise preparing for their own spacewalk scheduled for June 22 for maintenance on the exterior of the orbital stations Roscosmos sector. Leader Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin spent Wednesday gathering spacewalking hardware, testing assistance equipment, and configuring their spacesuit components. The duo will leave the Poisk airlock next Thursday and spend about seven hours replacing interactions and science hardware and photographing the condition of the Zvezda service module.
Roscosmos Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev began his early morning working on life assistance upkeep jobs. Next, he handed and activated over radiation sensors to Hoburg and Bowen who will wear them on their spacesuits throughout Thursdays spacewalk. Fedyaev later on worked out on a treadmill as ground professionals kept an eye on real-time video of his workout and hardware operations.
Mission managers provided the “go” for Thursdays spacewalk with NASA astronauts Woody Hoburg and Stephen Bowen. NASA TV begins its live broadcast of the spacewalk at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday on the agencys app and website.
The 3 NASA astronauts joined Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) for a last review of the spacewalk treatments and robotics activities required to support the solar array installation task.