For the first time, NASA astronauts venture outside the space station

Things are about to get hectic on the International Space Station (ISS). This Tuesday morning (15), astronauts from the US space agency, NASA, began the first of a series of spacewalks at the end of the year.

First-time spacewalkers, NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio began their tour outside the space station at 11:14 am ET, with live coverage on the agency’s website. The event is expected to last about seven hours.

Cassada is wearing the red-striped spacesuit as Extravehicular Crewman 1, while Rubio is in the unmarked suit as Extravehicular Crewman 2.

Astronauts will mount a strut on the starboard side of the space station’s truss. The hardware that will be installed during the spacewalk was delivered to the space station on November 9 aboard Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, which safely delivered its payload despite only one of its two solar panels being deployed after launch.

That hardware will allow for the installation of more launch solar arrays, called iROSAs, to boost the space station’s power. The first two deployment solar arrays were installed off the station in June 2021. In total, six iROSAs are planned and are likely to increase the space station’s power generation by more than 30% when all are operational.

During two more spacewalks on Nov. 28 and Dec. 1, a team of two astronauts will unfurl and install another pair of solar panels once the mounting hardware is in place. The solar panels will be delivered on the upcoming SpaceX Dragon commercial resupply mission, currently scheduled to launch on November 21.

Spacewalks are part of the space station crew’s routine as they maintain and upgrade the former orbital laboratory, but Tuesday’s spacewalk is NASA’s first since March. The agency’s spacewalks were cut short after European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer finished his first spacewalk with water in his helmet.

A thin layer of moisture that exceeded the normal and expected amount was discovered on Maurer’s helmet when he returned to the airlock after a nearly seven-hour spacewalk. Maurer quickly removed his helmet, in an event deemed “close” by NASA, and water samples, suit hardware and the spacesuit itself were returned to Earth for investigation. NASA officials determined that the suit had no hardware flaws.

“The cause of the water in the helmet was likely due to the performance of the integrated system, where many variables such as crew effort and crew cooling settings led to the generation of comparatively larger than normal amounts of condensate within the system.” , according to the NASA blog.

“Based on the findings, the team updated operating procedures and developed new mitigation hardware to minimize scenarios where the built-in performance results in water pooling, while soaking up any water that does show up. These measures will help contain any liquid in the helmet to continue keeping the crew safe.”

NASA officials gave the “green light” to resume spacewalks after the review was completed in October.

The research team developed techniques to manage temperatures in the suit and added new absorption bands to the helmet, said Dina Contella, International Space Station Program operations integration manager.

Thin orange-colored pieces were placed on different parts of the helmet, which has already been tested in orbit by astronauts inside the space station.

“We took several different models of this and the crew on board sprayed water around, essentially tried to inject water into the helmet at the same rate as would be the worst case. And we found that these pads were very, very effective,” said Contella.

Tuesday’s spacewalk will allow the crew to test the new pads as they work outside the space station ahead of the more complex spacewalks of installing solar panels in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, a Russian spacewalk is scheduled to take place on Thursday (17). Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin will begin their trek at 11:00 am ET to work outside the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. The pair will prepare a radiator for transferring the Rassvet module to Nauka during its seven-hour spacewalk, which will also be streamed live on NASA’s website.