NASA spacewalks scheduled for Sunday and March 5

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Astronauts Kate Rubins, Victor Glover Jr. and Soichi Noguchi are preparing for two upcoming spacewalks that will take them outside the International Space Station on February 28 and March 5.

Spacewalks will contribute to the continued upgrades of the space station in orbit around the Earth. Rubins and Glover are NASA astronauts and Noguchi is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut.

The two spacewalks, each lasting approximately six and a half hours, will be broadcast live on the NASA website and on the NASA TV channel.

Coverage of the February 28 spacewalk will begin at 4:30 a.m. ET, with astronauts expected to begin their walk at 6 a.m. ET. Coverage of the March 5 spacewalk will begin at 5:30 a.m. ET, and astronauts expect to exit the hatch around 7 a.m. ET.

If this Sunday spacewalk seems earlier than previous spacewalks – especially since it takes place on weekends – well, he is. But “it’s not really a Monday-Friday program,” Kenny Todd, deputy director of the International Space Station program, recalled at a press conference Wednesday.

This will be the 235th and 236th spacewalks in the history of the station.

NASA astronauts conduct second spacewalk of the year

For the first spacewalk, Rubins and Glover will team up to prepare for upcoming solar panel upgrades by assembling and installing modification kits. While the station’s current solar panels still perform well, they are degrading. This degradation is expected as they only have a lifespan of about 15 years and were installed in December 2000 – so they outlasted the warranty, so to speak.

All-new solar panels will be placed in front of six of the panels currently on the station later this year, increasing the station’s output from 160 kilowatts to 215 kilowatts, according to NASA. Solar panels will begin launching to the space station on a SpaceX vehicle in June.

In the February 28 spacewalk, Rubins will be crew member 1 in the red striped suit, and Glover will be crew member 2 in a non-striped suit.

NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Mike Hopkins take a spacewalk on Wednesday

Rubins and Noguchi will team up for the March 5 spacewalk to complete a number of tasks including venting ammonia from the early ammonia system, replacing a video transceiver assembly wireless and the installation of a “stiffener” on the thermal cover of the Quest airlock. This will prevent the lid from blowing when atmosphere escapes when the hatch is opened.

Glover started working on this during his last spacewalk, adding a stronger magnet to keep the lid closed.

Rubins will be Crew 1 in the Red Striped Suit on March 5, and Noguchi will be Crew 2 in the Unstriped Suit.

Russian spacewalk helps prepare space station for new module

All three of the crew are seasoned space walkers at this point. Glover has already completed two spacewalks since arriving at the space station in November. This will be his third.

Rubins has already performed spacewalks during his first rotation on the space station in 2016, so these will be his third and fourth spacewalks. And Noguchi will add a fourth spacewalk to his career; he had previously carried out three spacewalks during his shuttle flight in 2005 to help with repairs to the space station.

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