Astronauts eye spacewalk to replace ISS antenna
Print Edition
Two NASA astronauts were set to embark on a spacewalk yesterday to replace a faulty antenna on the International Space Station, after a 48-hour delay prompted by an orbital debris alert later deemed to be of no concern.
NASA TV planned live coverage of the 6-1/2-hour spacewalk, scheduled to begin at 1210 GMT as astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron exit an airlock of the orbiting research lab some 402 kilometers above Earth.
The outing is the fifth spacewalk for Marshburn, 61, a former flight surgeon with two previous trips to orbit, and a first for Barron, 34, a United States Navy submarine officer and nuclear engineer on her debut spaceflight for NASA.
Their objective is to remove a defective S-band radio communications antenna assembly, now more than 20 years old, and replace it with a spare stowed outside the space station.
The space station is equipped with other antennae that can perform the same functions, but installing a replacement ensures an ideal level of communications redundancy, NASA said.
Marshburn will work with Barron while positioned at the end of a robotic arm maneuvered from inside by German astronaut Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency, with help from NASA crewmate Raja Chari.
The four arrived at the space station November 11 in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, joining two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut, Mark Vande Hei, already aboard.
Four days later, an anti-satellite missile test conducted without warning by Russia generated a debris field in low-Earth orbit, forcing the seven ISS crew members to take shelter in their docked spaceships to allow for a quick getaway until the immediate danger passed.
The residual cloud of debris from the blasted satellite has dispersed since then, according to Dana Weigel, NASA deputy manager of the ISS program.
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