ISS - Expedition 63 Mission patch.
June 25, 2020
NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy and Robert Behnken are scheduled to depart the International Space Station’s Quest airlock Friday for a spacewalk to replace batteries to upgrade the power supply capability.
The duo will set their spacesuits to battery power about 7:35 a.m. EDT Friday, signifying the start of their spacewalk, which may last as long as seven hours. NASA will begin its live coverage on NASA Television and the agency’s website at 6 a.m.
NASA TV: https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
Image above: Astronauts (from left) Chris Cassidy and Bob Behnken are pictured during previous spacewalks on earlier missions at the space station. Image Credit: NASA.
NASA posted a video providing an animation of the spacewalk activities to depict how they will be replacing existing nickel-hydrogen batteries on one of two power channels on the far starboard truss (S6 Truss) of the station with new lithium-ion batteries that arrived on a Japanese cargo ship last month.
They are scheduled for a second spacewalk to continue the work on Wednesday, July 1. The battery replacement work is the final series of power upgrade spacewalks that began in January 2017.
ISS maintenance spacewalk. Animation Credit: NASA
This will be the 228th spacewalk in support of space station assembly and maintenance. Cassidy will be extravehicular crew member 1, wearing the spacesuit with red stripes, while Behnken will be extravehicular crew member 2, wearing the spacesuit with no stripes. It will be the seventh spacewalk for each astronaut.
Related links:
Expedition 63: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition63/index.html
Commercial Crew Program: https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/crew/index.html
HTV-9 resupply ship: https://iss.jaxa.jp/en/htv/mission/htv-9/
Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/overview.html
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
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