The Expedition 70 crew is preparing for another spacewalk planned for early November to perform maintenance on the International Space Station's exterior. The next spacewalk of the U.S. Orbital Module is scheduled for Wednesday, November 1, to give the International Space Station crew and flight control team more time to prepare for this spacewalk.
Expedition 70 flight engineer Nikolai Chub from Roscosmos conducts a spacewalk to inspect backup radiators, deploy a nanosatellite and install communications hardware on the International Space Station's Science module. Image source: NASA
NASA astronauts Loral O'Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli will exit the space station's Discovery airlock to remove an electronics box called the Radio Frequency Group in the communications antenna system. They will also replace one of the 12 sliding bearing assemblies on the station's port side Solar Alpha swivel joint. These bearings enable the space station's solar arrays to track the sun. The spacewalk was originally scheduled to take place on Monday, October 30.
Pictured here are Expedition 70 flight engineers Oleg Kononenko (red striped suit) and Nikolai Chub (blue striped suit) during a spacewalk, inspecting backup radiators, deploying a nanosatellite, and installing communications hardware on the International Space Station's Nauka science module. Image source: NASA
The 89th U.S. spacewalk will be the first for Mogbeli and O'Hara. Mogbeli will serve as the Extravehicular Activity 1 crew member and will wear a spacesuit with a red stripe. O'Hara will serve as Extravehicular Activity Crew 2 and wear an unmarked spacesuit.
Throughout Thursday, O'Hara and Mogbeli were checking tools in preparation for the hardware they would take out of Discovery's airlock for a repair spacewalk. In the afternoon, they were joined by astronaut Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to check the spacewalk procedures.
Expedition 70 commander Andreas Mogensen from the European Space Agency (ESA) assists NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli in trying on the spacesuit and testing its components on the Discovery airlock of the International Space Station in preparation for the upcoming spacewalk. Image source: NASA
O'Hara begins the day installing communications hardware to support laser technology research. Mogbeli spent some time performing research maintenance, removing a malfunctioning electronic device from a scientific freezer and packaging it for storage. Mogensen analyzed air samples from the space station and then transmitted data collected from wearable health monitoring devices.
Furukawa spent the entire day focusing on a variety of scientific activities, including studying the effects of microgravity on astronauts and installing a biological microscope. The astronaut, who has visited the space station twice, first took part in a cognitive test that measured how long-duration space missions affect astronauts' brain structure and function. Furukawa then prepared a microscope to see how the cells responded to the weightlessness. Later, with the assistance of doctors on the ground, he used ultrasound 2 equipment to scan the veins in Mogensen's neck, shoulders and legs.
The orbiting laboratory's three astronauts slept in Thursday after a 7-hour, 41-minute spacewalk the day before. Flight engineers Oleg Kononenko, Nikolay Chubb and Konstantin Borisov woke up in the early afternoon and conducted post-spacewalk cleanup activities before holding a meeting with ground experts. Borisov will then collect air samples for analysis and configure life support equipment in the Nauka science module.