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Two astronauts tackled a list of remaining maintenance tasks outside the International Space Station on Saturday, March 13, completing work that was originally scheduled to be done on previous spacewalks.
Expedition 64 teammates Victor “Ike” Glover and Mike “Hopper” Hopkins, both of NASA, ventured out of the space station’s Quest airlock on Sunday March 13 for the 6-hour extravehicular activity (EVA). and 47 minutes. The spacewalk, which began at 8:14 a.m. EST (1:14 p.m. GMT), marked their third outing together since arriving at the station in November on SpaceX’s “Resilience” Dragon spacecraft.
The two astronauts’ first task, postponed from a spacewalk earlier this month, was to remove remaining ammonia from two flying cables that were used to supply coolant to the thermal control system of the station. Working on the left end of the backbone structure of the orbiting complex, Glover and Hopkins released the ammonia from the pair of pipes, then stowed one jumper in place and moved the other to the side of the airlock. if they were needed to help find coolant leaks. in the future.
“I see a breakdown,” Hopkins said after releasing the ammonia from the first jumper. “Oh yeah, look at that!”
“It’s more than I expected,” he said moments later as the coolant continued to spill out into the space.
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Because ammonia is poisonous, the two spacewomen stopped to inspect each other’s spacesuits to make sure no ice crystals of ammonia were attached.
“I can see the top of your helmet, your lights, the PLSS [portable life support system], your shoulders, your arms – I can’t see anything stuck, “Glover reported of Hopkins’ space suit.” It looks clean. “
After putting the jumpers away and cleaning up the tools used to remove the ammonia, Glover and Hopkins went their separate ways to continue separate tasks outside the space station.
Glover, who was designated Extravehicular Crew 1 (EV1) and was wearing a spacesuit with red stripes for identification, walked over to the Unity node to replace a faulty wireless camera transceiver with a new one.
Meanwhile, Hopkins, dressed in a non-striped spacesuit like the EV2, moved to the Columbus Laboratory of the European Space Agency (ESA), where he worked to run electrical cables to the experimentation platform. external Bartolomeo of the module. Glover and Hopkins had installed the same rig during a spacewalk on January 27, but encountered problems connecting some of the cables, preventing the platform from becoming fully operational.
“Coupled!” Hopkins exclaimed after successfully connecting the first of the troublesome connectors. “And the crowd is going wild!”
“Pretty!” Glover replied.
“Good job! Wow! Great. Good news,” ESA astronaut Andreas (Andy) Mogensen, who was guiding Hopkins and Glover in their work from Mission Control in Houston, said over the radio.
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As Hopkins continued to work on the second and third of the four Bartolomeo cables, Glover completed the wireless transceiver replacement and moved on to installing a “stiffener” on the Quest airlock thermal cover. to provide additional structural integrity and prevent the fabric hatch from being jostled when not in use.
“Hopper, there’s something in my right eye,” Glover told Hopkins. “I can see, but it’s irritating to try to keep it open.”
Glover continued to work on the hatch stiffener, but described the problem with his eye in more detail at Mission Control.
“It’s irritated if I keep it open. If I close it I’m fine, slightly irritated and it’s watery. So tears creates tears,” Glover said, adding that blinking seemed to help.
A few minutes later, Glover said his right eye had returned to normal.
Hopkins, meanwhile, had no joy in locking the fourth connector onto the Bartolomeo platform. Despite his best efforts, including using a tether as a makeshift handle to lower his locking mechanism, Hopkins was unable to get the cable to sit, and Mission Control advised him to retire.
Instead, Hopkins continued to reconfigure an amateur radio antenna on the Columbus module. Astronauts use amateur radio to connect with enthusiasts and students around the world as an educational and public awareness tool.
As a final task for the spacewalk, Glover and Hopkins got together to begin routing two Ethernet cables for the high-definition cameras on the port trellis.
The spacewalk ended at 3:01 p.m. EST (2001 GMT) with the re-pressurization of the Quest airlock.
Glover has now spent a total of 26 hours and 7 minutes on four spacewalks. Hopkins has now logged 32 hours and 1 minute on his five EVAs. This was the 237th spacewalk in support of the assembly and maintenance of the International Space Station, lasting a total of 62 days, 3 hours and 54 minutes.
Robert Pearlman is a contributing writer for Space.com and the publisher of collectSPACE.com, a partner site of Space.com and the leading news publication on the history of space. Follow collectSPACE on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
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