Two Expedition 68 astronauts are making ready to exit the Worldwide Area Station on Wednesday and increase the orbiting lab’s energy technology system. The duo from NASA, Frank Rubio and Josh Cassada, will spend about seven hours putting in the station’s fourth roll-out photo voltaic array on the Port-4 (P4) truss construction.
Rubio and Cassada spent Tuesday gathering their instruments and making ready the Quest airlock for the 12th spacewalk of 2022. The pair have been joined for the spacewalk preparations by Flight Engineers Nicole Mann of NASA, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company (JAXA), and Commander Sergey Prokopyev from Roscosmos. The quintet gathered collectively and reviewed Wednesday’s spacewalk procedures, instruments, and elements then known as all the way down to specialists on the bottom for a readiness convention.
Mann and Wakata additionally took turns learning on a pc the Canadarm2 robotic arm maneuvers essential to assist the NASA spacewalkers after they set up the roll-out photo voltaic array on the P4. The 2 flight engineers shall be on the robotics workstation commanding Canadarm2 and aiding the spacewalking duo in the course of the fine-tuned set up job.
The pair additionally had time on Tuesday for microgravity analysis work. Mann watered dwarf tomatoes rising contained in the Veggie facility for the Veg-05 house agriculture examine. Wakata checked cable connections on the Cell Biology Experiment Facility, a specialised incubator with a man-made gravity generator housing analysis samples for a bone therapeutic examine.
Earlier than Prokopyev assisted the spacewalking staff as we speak, he labored on electronics upkeep and orbital plumbing duties. Roscosmos Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin assisted Prokopyev with the electronics work earlier than learning superior Earth pictures strategies and exploring methods to pilot spacecraft and robots on future planetary missions. Flight Engineer Anna Kikina additionally labored on digital part installations earlier than checking radiation detection {hardware} and eventually researching how worldwide crews and mission controllers from all over the world can enhance communications.
Be taught extra about station actions by following the house station weblog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, in addition to the ISS Fb and ISS Instagram accounts.
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