Sometimes the people who take care of the house come a little behind the maintenance. The same thing sometimes happens with people who take care of the International Space Station.
According to NASA, two astronauts are preparing a spacewalk this week to prepare for the next replacement of a solar array designed over the past 15 years and were installed on the ISS more than 20 years ago.
Flight engineers Kate Rubins and Victor Glover will exit the ISS for the spacewalk. They will assemble and install devices for the next upgrade, both replacing the existing declining solar array and increasing the station’s available power from 160 kW to 215 kW, according to NASA. A SpaceX rocket is set to deliver a new array later this year.
Flight engineers Kate Rubins and Victor Glover will leave the ISS for the spacewalk on Sunday.
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This will be the third spacewalk for both astronauts.
The on-orbit crew has been very busy this week, Flight Director Marcos Flores said during a news conference on Wednesday. “They have reviewed all their processes and are making a lot of efforts to make sure all their training is completed.”
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The astronauts are scheduled to depart at about 6 a.m. Sunday. The spacewalk is expected to last about six and a half hours.
The spacewalk on Sunday is the first of the next two maintenance spacewalks scheduled for the ISS. In March, Rubins, along with Japanese astronaut Sochi Noguchi, will again boost ammonia, among other things. They will also install a “stiffener” on the irl rolllock thermal cover.
The spacewalk on Sunday is the first of the next two maintenance spacewalks scheduled for the ISS. (Reuters / NASA / Handout)
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This will be the 235th and 236th spacewalks from the ISS.
While some astronauts aboard the ISS were preparing for their next spacewalk, others were busy pounding tons of cargo, which Northrop Grumman Cygnus landed on the replacement ship again, according to NASA. Equipment delivered to the station includes supplies, new science hardware and other devices such as freezers for biological samples.
