Spacewalking astronauts wrap up upkeep work on dwelling save

Two astronauts tackled a list of leftover upkeep responsibilities outside of the Worldwide Place of living Living Saturday (March 13), winding up work that became on the origin scheduled to be done on outdated spacewalks.

Expedition 64 crewmates Victor “Ike” Glover and Mike “Hopper” Hopkins, both with NASA, ventured out of the dwelling save’s Quest airlock on Sunday (March 13) for the 6 hour and 47 minute extravehicular say (EVA). The spacewalk, which started at 8: 14 a.m. EST (1314 GMT), marked their third time out together since arriving on the save in November on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft “Resilience.”

The 2 astronauts’ first assignment, postponed from a spacewalk earlier this month, became to vent the ideal ammonia from two jumper cables that were historical to feed coolant into the save’s thermal reduction an eye fixed on system. Working on the some distance left ruin of the orbiting complex’s backbone truss, Glover and Hopkins released the ammonia from the pair of hoses and then stowed one jumper in save of living and relocated the replacement to the aspect of the airlock ought to they’re fundamental to aid fetch coolant leaks one day. 

“I survey venting,” mentioned Hopkins after releasing the ammonia from the main jumper. “Oh yeah, see at that hump!” 

“That is extra than I presumed,” he mentioned a number of moments later as coolant persisted to spray into dwelling.

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Because ammonia is toxic, the two spacewalkers paused to quiz one but every other’s spacesuits to receive definite no ammonia ice crystals were connected. 

“I will survey the head of your helmet, your lights, the PLSS [portable life support system], your shoulders, your hands — I survey nothing that is stuck,” reported Glover about Hopkins’ spacesuit. “It seems to be orderly.”

After stowing the jumpers and cleansing up the instruments they historical to vent the ammonia, Glover and Hopkins split systems to continue separate responsibilities outside the dwelling save.

Glover, who became designated extravehicular crew member 1 (EV1) and wore a spacesuit with red stripes for identification, headed off to the Cohesion node to interchange a failed wireless camera transceiver with a brand original one.

In the period in-between, Hopkins, carrying a spacesuit and not using a stripes as EV2, transitioned over to the ESA (European Place of living Company) Columbus laboratory, where he worked to trot electrical cables to the module’s Bartolomeo exterior experiment platform. Glover and Hopkins had build apart within the the same rigging within the direction of a Jan. 27 spacewalk, however bumped into issues connecting a number of of the cables, stopping the platform from changing into fully operational.

“Mated!” exclaimed Hopkins after successfully connecting the main of the difficult connectors. “And the crowd goes wild!”

“Good!” replied Glover.

“Correct job! Wow! Fabulous. Correct files,” radioed ESA astronaut Andreas (Andy) Mogensen, who became guiding Hopkins and Glover by technique of their work from Mission Management in Houston.

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As Hopkins persisted working on the 2nd and third of 4 Bartolomeo cables, Glover done the wireless transceiver replace and moved on to installing a “stiffener” on the Quest airlock’s thermal duvet to invent added structural integrity and to cease the cloth hatch from being jostled open when no longer in employ.

“Hopper, there would possibly perchance be one thing in my honest leer,” Glover radioed to Hopkins. “I will survey, however it’s miles nerve-racking trying to defend it open.”

Glover persisted working on the hatch stiffener, however described the space along with his leer in extra detail to Mission Management.

“It’s irritated if I reduction it open. If I end it, I’m fine, a piece irritated and or no longer it’s watery. So tears, it’s miles creating tears,” mentioned Glover, adding that blinking looked as if it would aid. 

A pair of minutes later, Glover mentioned his honest leer became succor to traditional.

Hopkins, meanwhile, had no joy with latching down the fourth connector on the Bartolomeo platform. No topic his simplest efforts, including the employ of a tether as a makeshift take care of to drag down on its locking mechanism, Hopkins would possibly perchance no longer ranking the cable to seat and Mission Management informed he stand down. 

As a replace, Hopkins moved on to reconfigure a ham radio antenna on the Columbus module. Astronauts employ ham radio to connect with enthusiasts and college students across the globe as both an academic and public outreach procedure.

As their closing assignment for the spacewalk, Glover and Hopkins came together to initiate routing two ethernet cables for excessive-definition cameras on the port truss. 

The spacewalk came to an ruin at 3: 01 p.m. EST (2001 GMT) with the repressurization of the Quest airlock.

Glover has now spent a total of 26 hours and 7 minutes on four spacewalks. Hopkins has now logged 32 hours and 1 minute on his five EVAs. This became the 237th spacewalk in enhance of the assembly and maintenance of the Worldwide Place of living Living, for a total time of 62 days, 3 hours, and 54 minutes.

Robert Pearlman is a Place of living.com contributing creator and the editor of collectSPACE.com, a Place of living.com partner save and the main dwelling ancient previous files e-newsletter. Educate collectSPACE on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Educate us @Spacedotcom and Facebook . Customary article on Place of living.com.