![]() ![]() Rubins and Glover will traverse out the station’s backbone truss structure to the far left (port) side set of solar arrays, the first pair of solar arrays deployed in December 2000 that have been powering the station for more than 20 years. Glover is extravehicular crew member 2 (EV 2), wearing the spacesuit without stripes and helmet camera #20. Rubins is extravehicular crew member 1 (EV 1), wearing a spacesuit bearing red stripes and using helmet camera #22. Watch the spacewalk on NASA TV, the NASA app, and on the agency’s website. EST to begin the spacewalk, which is expected to last about six and a half hours. The spacewalkers switched their spacesuits to battery power at 6:12 a.m. ![]() NASA astronauts Kate Rubins and Victor Glover have begun their spacewalk outside the International Space Station to begin assembling and installing modification kits required for upcoming solar array upgrades. NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins during a six-hour and 48-minute spacewalk on Sept. Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, and on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts. Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 61 days, 14 hours, and 11 minutes working outside the station.ĭuring the spacewalk March 5, Rubins and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi will venture outside the orbiting outpost to complete the installation of the 4B array modification kit and are expected to tackle additional work, including the venting of ammonia from the Early Ammonia System. Space station crew members have conducted 235 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory. Glover now has spent a total of 19 hours and 20 minutes spacewalking. Rubins has now spent a total of 19 hours and 50 minutes spacewalking. This was the third career spacewalk for both Rubins and Glover. The current solar arrays are functioning well but have begun to show signs of degradation, as expected, as they were designed for a 15-year service life. The new solar arrays, a larger version of the Roll-Out Solar Array (ROSA) technology, will be positioned in front of six of the current arrays, ultimately increasing the station’s total available power from 160 kilowatts to up to 215 kilowatts. To ensure a sufficient power supply is maintained for NASA’s exploration technology demonstrations for Artemis and beyond as well as utilization and commercialization, NASA is augmenting six of the eight existing power channels of the space station with new solar arrays. They completed the construction of upper support hardware and secured it to the space station’s exterior structure until work can be completed on the next spacewalk on Friday, March 5. Rubins and Glover then moved to begin identical assembly work for the bracket for the second of the P6 solar array pair, known as 4B. The bolt likely will need to be secured further before installing one of the new solar arrays that will be delivered to the space station later this year aboard SpaceX’s 22 nd commercial resupply services mission. One of the bolts did not fully engage on the first attempt, so Rubins used a power drill to back it out and reseat it, then used a ratchet wrench to tighten the bolt, reaching a safe configuration. Glover built a bracket structure and worked with Rubins to attach the bracket and support struts to the mast canister, the base, of one of the P6 solar arrays, known as 2B. The duo worked near the farthest set of existing solar arrays on the station’s left (port) side, known as P6. In the third spacewalk of the year outside the International Space Station, the two NASA astronauts began work to install modification kits required for upcoming solar array upgrades. NASA astronauts Kate Rubins and Victor Glover concluded their spacewalk at 1:16 p.m. ![]() Spacewalkers Victor Glover and Kate Rubins are pictured at the mast canister, installing bracket support struts to the base of the solar array on Feb, 28th 2021.
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