ISS - Expedition 64 Mission patch.
March 9, 2021
The Expedition 64 astronauts are gearing up for the third spacewalk in two weeks at the International Space Station. The orbital residents also fit in a variety of space agriculture studies and orbital maintenance tasks on their busy schedule today.
NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins will partner up for their third spacewalk together on Saturday to work on the station’s cooling system and communications gear. The duo will begin their excursion when they set their spacesuits to battery power around 7:30 a.m. EST. NASA TV starts its broadcast of all the spacewalk activities at 6 a.m.
Image above: Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Victor Glover works during a spacewalk on Jan. 27, 2021, to set up the space station for future solar array upgrades. Image Credit: NASA TV.
They will spend the first part of their six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk venting and relocating ammonia lines on the far-left side of the station at the Port-6 truss structure. Next, Glover will replace a wireless communications antenna on the Unity module. Hopkins will complete cable connections on the Bartolomeo external payload facility located on Europe’s Columbus laboratory module.
Following that, the spacewalkers will meet back up to install a “stiffener” on the Quest’s airlock cover. Finally, they will route high-definition video camera cables before wrapping up the fifth spacewalk of 2021.
Hopkins and Glover were joined by Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Soichi Noguchi on Tuesday afternoon for a review of this weekend’s spacewalk procedures. NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker began cleaning and servicing their spacesuits and components today.
International Space Station (ISS). Animation Credit: NASA
Hopkins and Noguchi also spent some time Tuesday on space gardening tasks. Hopkins began harvesting Amara Mustard and Extra Dwarf Pak Choi plants today for the Veg-03 botany study. Noguchi watered fast-growing plants used for traditional medicine and food flavoring for the Asian Herb investigation.
Commander Sergey Ryzhikov sampled the Zvezda service module’s air quality today. Roscosmos Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov worked on payload cable connections in the station’s Russian segment.
Related links:
Expedition 64: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition64/index.html
Port-6 truss structure: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/truss-structure
Unity module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/unity
Bartolomeo: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=7799
Columbus laboratory module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/europe-columbus-laboratory
Quest’s airlock: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/joint-quest-airlock
Veg-03: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1159
Asian Herb: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=2052
Zvezda service module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/zvezda-service-module.html
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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