Two space walking astronauts began preparing for this International Space Station (ISS) Fighting tough bolts to remove power upgrade for orbital laboratory for new solar array on Sunday (February 28).
Expedition 64 flight engineers Kate Rubins And Victor Glover – Both NASA astronauts – spent more than seven hours outside the station installing a modification kit for a new solar array during a spacewalk. They worked there to install brackets on the two mast canisters at the base of the outpost’s current solar horn wings and to support the struts, but could only install one kit when assembling the other and storing it later.
“They completed the construction of the upper support hardware and secured it to the outer space structure’s outer structure until work on the next spacewalk was completed by Friday, March 5,” NASA officials said in an update.
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The ISS, whose parts have been in orbit since 1998, is preparing for new solar panels. The oldest set of panels is called NASA Has been in operation since December 2000, and is doing well despite its announced 15-year service life. (The other pairs were distributed in September 2006, June 2007, and March 2009.) But the arrays do not produce as much power as they used to, so now begins the SpaceX series.
The new array will be smaller than the old one due to the advancement in solar technology in G. They will be installed to roll out in front of six existing arrays, allowing new installations to use the infrastructure already in place for existing sets, according to NASA. Boeing (the main contractor for space station operations) will provide the array with the help of its subsidiary Spectrolab and a major supplier, Deployed Space Systems.
The space kers curse aimed to install new array support structures in station 4B and 2B using a solar array modification kit and some tools, which came in a huge bag about 8 feet (2.5 m) long and 1 foot (0.3 m) wide. . And deep. Rubins and Glover stopped the kit and solar array struts for their work to the right edge of the station, using a special “slingshot” device to use crew safety tethers from the main body of the ISS.
“Unfortunately, this mode kit is very large, and it does not fit the door in its current state,” said Spacewalk official Art Thomas. News conference Kept on Wednesday (February 24). “So we bring it out in pieces, like assembling furniture.”
Thomas notes that the mass of the equipment is about 330 pounds. (1 kilogram), and crew members will need to be careful about bringing everything to the far edges of the space station as far as the solar array is located.
“Even though we don’t have the gravity to deal in space, we still have inertia and mass. The crew knows how to be careful with this.” “As they are translating [moving] From there, they’ll make it easier and make sure that when they’re turning corners, and things like that, they help guide the bag because this is a bigger thing than what they use. “
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The crew hoped to install two sets of struts at two sites near the solar array, Thomas said. At each site, they used foot restraints and tethers to anchor in place, before installing the left strut, t, right strut and midstrot. The astronauts planned to protect the thermal blankets on each of the struts. To provide a clearer view, Rubin also placed a new high-definition video on his spacesuit, Car Mero, which was released in the U.S. Is the first for spacewalks.
In practice, however, Glover and Rubins fell behind the schedule after one of the bolts on the first strut was not fully inserted at first.
NASA officials wrote in the update that “one of the bolts did not fully engage in the first attempt, so Rubins used a power drill to pull it back and re-check it, then used a ratchet wrench to tighten the bolts, reaching a safe configuration.” “Bolt needs to be made more secure before installing one of the new solar arrays delivered to the space station later this year on SpaceX’s 22nd commercial replacement services mission,” NASA officials wrote in the update.
The astronauts then managed to gather the upper support for the second set of arenas, then secured it to their workplace so that it could be installed on the next spacewalk on March 5th.
Rubins and Japanese astronaut Sochi Noguchi will venture out of the station on that next voyage, which is expected to complete the work started from today’s spacewalk. This will include a bundle of maintenance tasks: ventilating the ammonia, removing and replacing the wireless video transceiver assembly, and installing a “stiffener” on the thermal cover of Quest Airlock to prevent the cover from blowing during the spacewalk (while some residue goes into the air space station). .) For that tour, there will be Rubins EV1 and Noguchi EV2.
The solar array naturally degrades over time and the new array set will increase the station’s current power level from 20% to 30%, bringing back to the ISS what was available when the rotation laboratory was built decades ago. NASA said in a statement. (Batteries are also a factor in station power, especially for storage capacities; the spacewalking crew spent nearly four years upgrading older batteries to newer and more efficient versions, Finally complete that work in January.)
Eight solar arrays are now in place providing about 160 kilowatts of power; Half of which is stored when the station orbit is in the dark, which occurs about 15 times a day. Once the new solar array will be put in place of the old one, then the new array will add power to what is left of the old array. .
“The Solar Array will be delivered to the International Space Station in pairs in the unpressed trunk of the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft during three replay missions starting in 2021, while the second pair of the current array will reach the 15th year of its formation life.” NASA added In the statement. “Each solar arena installation will require two spacewalks: one to prepare the worksheet with a modification kit and the other to install a new solar array.”
Solar Array 4B has an interesting history. Back in 2007, astronauts and space shuttles on the space station were setting up a new distributed array when they saw tears growing. They stopped the deployment and consulted with NASA Mission Control in Houston for a fix.
The result was an epic spaceflight – the processes for which were implemented in just a few days – he saw Astronaut Scott Parazensky Space King Above the CanadaDerm 2 robotic arm and extension piece for repair. Parazensky uses orbital tools to carefully sew tears into a fully operated array. The hard work of Parazensky, his crumates and ground controllers that November Allowed damaged array to finish deployment. Even today it is fine.
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