(De gauche à droite) Les astronautes Raja Chari et Matthias Maurer sortiront de la station spatiale mercredi pour une sortie de maintenance de 6,5 heures. Crédit : NASA
Les responsables de la mission ont donné le feu vert pour que deux astronautes quittent la Station spatiale internationale mercredi pour une sortie dans l’espace de six heures et demie. Pendant ce temps, trois membres de l’équipage Expedition 66 se préparent à leur retour sur Terre à la fin du mois.
Les ingénieurs de vol Raja Chari de ;” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{” attribute=””>NASA and Matthias Maurer of ESA (European Space Agency) began Tuesday morning with standard medical checkups the day before their spacewalk. The duo had an ear exam and measured heart and breathing rate, blood pressure, and temperature. Afterward, Chari and Maurer staged their U.S. spacesuits and readied their spacewalking tools inside the U.S. Quest airlock.
NASA astronaut Raja Chari and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer check the fit of their Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuits ahead of a spacewalk scheduled for March 23, 2022. The pair are helped by NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn. Credit: ESA/NASA
During the afternoon, the spacewalking pair were joined by NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Tom Marshburn for a procedures review with engineers on the ground. Barron and Marshburn will also be on robotics duty commanding the Canadarm2 robotics arm to assist the spacewalkers during Wednesday’s excursion. Chari and Maurer set their spacesuits to battery power at 8:50 a.m. EDT signifying the start of their spacewalk. Their main objective is to install thermal system and electronics components on the outside of the space station. Live NASA TV coverage begins at 7:30 a.m. on NASA Television, the NASA app and the agency’s website.
ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer checks the fit of his US Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit ahead of a spacewalk scheduled for March 23, 2023. This will be the first spacewalk for Matthias, who will partner with NASA astronaut Raja Chari to carry out a range of tasks including installation of a power and data cable for external science platform Bartolomeo. Credit: ESA/NASA
The next major event at the orbital lab will be on March 30 when NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei returns to Earth with Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov. The trio will undock from the Rassvet module inside the Soyuz MS-19 crew ship and parachute to a landing in Kazakhstan about three-and-a-half hours later. The two cosmonauts practiced Soyuz descent procedures and loaded cargo and personal items inside the vehicle. Vande Hei, who will land with a NASA-record breaking 355 continuous days in space, focused mainly on science today studying space archeology and glass optics.
The station’s three newest crew members are in their first full week on the orbiting lab and continue their station familiarization activities. Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, on his third space station mission, and first time space-flyers Sergey Korsakov and Denis Matveev will spend the next few days getting used to life on orbit.
