Two NASA astronauts are gearing up for their first spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) for maintenance work in low Earth orbit, marking just the second time two women will exit the station together.
The spacewalk is scheduled to begin around 8:05 am ET on Wednesday (which is 11:05 pm Wednesday AEDT) and last for about six-and-a-half hours. NASA will air the extravehicular activity live on NASA’s YouTube channel, the NASA app, and NASA TV. You can also tune in through the feed below. Coverage will start at 9:30 pm (Sydney time).
NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara are tasked with removing an electronics box from a communications antenna on the space station, as well as replacing one of 12 trundle-bearing assemblies, which are used to rotate the solar arrays on board the ISS to track the Sun as the space station orbits Earth.
This will mark Moghbeli and O’Hara’s first spacewalk and the second ever all-woman spacewalk. The first time two women donned spacesuits and exited the ISS for maintenance work was in 2019 when NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir replaced a failed power controller. The spacewalk was famously delayed multiple times due to there not being enough smaller sized spacesuits on board the ISS.
Wednesday’s spacewalk was originally scheduled for October 12, but was delayed due to a coolant leak from a backup radiator on the Russian module. Two Russian astronauts were inspecting the leak during the most recent spacewalk outside the ISS on October 25 when a bubble of residual coolant leaked out, forcing them to end their time tethered outside the station.
NASA hasn’t given an update on the leak since then, but hopefully it will not affect the upcoming spacewalk.