On Friday, Jan. 6 and Friday, Jan. 13, astronauts on the International Space Station will step outside to perform spacewalks. 

What’s a spacewalk? It’s any time an astronaut gets out of a vehicle or spacecraft while in space. It can also be called an EVA (extravehicular activity).

Astronauts go on spacewalks for many reasons. These activities allow crew members to work outside their spacecraft (in this case the space station).

So what specific tasks will astronauts perform in these two upcoming spacewalks? Let’s take a look…

Both spacewalks are being performed to upgrade the orbital outpost’s power system. 

The crew members will install adapter plates and hook up electrical connections for six new lithium-ion batteries that were delivered to the station in December.

NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson will perform the first spacewalk on Jan. 6. The work will continue Jan. 13 during the second spacewalk, which will be conducted by Kimbrough and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

Prior to each spacewalk, the new batteries will be robotically extracted from a pallet to replace 12 older nickel-hydrogen batteries through a series of robotic operations.  

Watch LIVE Spacewalk Coverage

Friday, Jan. 6
Coverage begins at 5:30 a.m. EST, with astronauts venturing outside at 7 a.m.
Watch HERE

Friday, Jan. 13
Coverage begins at 5:30 a.m. EST, with astronauts venturing outside at 7 a.m.
Watch HERE

Watch for more…

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Friday, Oct. 20, NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik and Joe Acaba ventured outside the International Space Station for a 6 hour and 49 minute spacewalk. Just like you make improvements to your home on Earth, astronauts living in space periodically go outside the space station to make updates on their orbiting home.

During this spacewalk, they did a lot! Here’s a recap of their day told in GIFs…

All spacewalks begin inside the space station. Astronauts Paolo Nespoli and Mark Vande Hei helped each spacewalker put on their suit, known as an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU).

They then enter an airlock and regulate the pressure so that they can enter the vacuum of space safely. If they did not regulate the pressure safely, the astronauts could experience something referred to as “the bends” – similar to scuba divers.

Once the two astronauts exited the airlock and were outside the space station, they went to their respective work stations.

Bresnik replaced a failed fuse on the end of the Dextre robotic arm extension, which helps capture visiting vehicles.

During that time, Acaba set up a portable foot restraint to help him get in the right position to install a new camera.

While he was getting set up, he realized that there was unexpected wearing on one of his safety tethers. Astronauts have multiple safety mechanisms for spacewalking, including a “jet pack” on their spacesuit. That way, in the unlikely instance they become untethered from the station, the are able to propel back to safety.

Bresnik was a great teammate and brought Acaba a spare safety tether to use.

Once Acaba secured himself in the foot restraint that was attached to the end of the station’s robotic arm, he was maneuvered into place to install a new HD camera. Who was moving the arm? Astronauts inside the station were carefully moving it into place!

And, ta da! Below you can see one of the first views from the new enhanced HD camera…(sorry, not a GIF).

After Acaba installed the new HD camera, he repaired the camera system on the end of the robotic arm’s hand. This ensures that the hand can see the vehicles that it’s capturing.

Bresnik, completed all of his planned tasks and moved on to a few “get ahead” tasks. He first started removing extra thermal insulation straps around some spare pumps. This will allow easier access to these spare parts if and when they’re needed in the future.

He then worked to install a new handle on the outside of space station. That’s a space drill in the above GIF. 

After Acaba finished working on the robotic arm’s camera, he began greasing bearings on the new latching end effector (the arm’s “hand”), which was just installed on Oct. 5.

The duo completed all planned spacewalk tasks, cleaned up their work stations and headed back to the station’s airlock. 

Once safely inside the airlock and pressure was restored to the proper levels, the duo was greeted by the crew onboard. 

They took images of their spacesuits to document any possible tears, rips or stains, and took them off. 

Coverage ended at 2:36 p.m. EDT after 6 hours and 49 minutes. We hope the pair was able to grab some dinner and take a break!

You can watch the entire spacewalk HERE, or follow @Space_Station on Twitter and Instagram for regular updates on the orbiting laboratory. 

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This Friday, Aug. 19, two U.S. astronauts will install a new gateway for American commercial crew spacecraft at the International Space Station. 

Commercial crew flights from Florida’s Space Coast to the International Space Station will restore America’s human spaceflight launch capability and increase the time U.S. crews can dedicate to scientific research.

The adapter being installed (imaged below) was launched on a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft and arrived on orbit July 20. This ring is known as an International Docking Adapter, or IDA, and its main purpose is to provide a port for spacecraft bringing astronauts to the station in the future. Outfitted with a host of sensors and systems, the adapter is built so spacecraft systems can automatically perform all the steps of arrival and docking with the station without input from the astronauts. 

NASA astronauts Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins will perform the spacewalk to install the equipment this Friday, Aug. 19. This will be the fourth spacewalk in Williams’ career and the first for Rubins.

Four previous spacewalks…like the one below…helped set the stage for installation of this docking adapter. During those previous spacewalks, other crew members laid hundreds of feet of power and data cables outside the space station. 

On Wednesday, the robotics team using the Canadarm2 and its attached “Dextre” manipulator, will reach into the SpaceX Dragon trunk and pull out the docking adapter and position it for Friday’s spacewalk activities.

The morning of the spacewalk, while the astronauts are getting suited up, the robotic arm will position the docking adaptor near the port so that it will be ready for installation.

The two astronauts will venture outside the space station to install the first International Docking Adapter (IDA). This new adapter port will provide a parking space for U.S. Commercial Crew vehicles.

Watch LIVE!

Coverage of the spacewalk begins at 6:30 a.m. EDT on Friday, Aug. 19; with the spacewalk scheduled to begin at 8:05 a.m. EDT. Stream live online HERE. 

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Spacewalkers Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins to install new TV cameras 

On Thursday, Sept. 1, U.S. astronauts Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins will conduct the station’s 195th American spacewalk. As part of their activities, the pair will install the first of several enhanced high-definition television cameras that will monitor activities outside the station, including the comings and goings of visiting cargo and crew vehicles

Working on the station’s backbone, or truss, Williams and Rubins will retract a thermal radiator that is part of the station’s cooling system. 

As was the case for their first spacewalk together on Aug. 19, Williams will be designated as extravehicular crew member 1 (EV1), wearing a spacesuit with a red stripe, while Rubins will be EV2, wearing a suit with no stripes.

Watch LIVE!

Coverage of the spacewalk begins at 6:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Sept. 1; with the spacewalk scheduled to begin at 8:05 a.m. EDT. Stream live online HERE.

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A new era of human spaceflight is about to begin. American astronauts will once again launch on an American rocket from American soil to the International Space Station as part of our Commercial Crew Program! NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will fly on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, lifting off on a Falcon 9 rocket at 4:32 p.m. EDT May 27, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, for an extended stay at the space station for the Demo-2 mission. 

As the final flight test for SpaceX, this mission will validate the company’s crew transportation system, including the launch pad, rocket, spacecraft and operational capabilities. This also will be the first time NASA astronauts will test the spacecraft systems in orbit.

Behnken and Hurley were among the first astronauts to begin working and training on SpaceX’s next-generation human space vehicle and were selected for their extensive test pilot and flight experience, including several missions on the space shuttle.

Behnken will be the joint operations commander for the mission, responsible for activities such as rendezvous, docking and undocking, as well as Demo-2 activities while the spacecraft is docked to the space station.

Hurley will be the spacecraft commander for Demo-2, responsible for activities such as launch, landing and recovery.

Lifting off from Launch Pad 39A atop a specially instrumented Falcon 9 rocket, Crew Dragon will accelerate its two passengers to approximately 17,000 mph and put it on an intercept course with the International Space Station. In about 24 hours, Crew Dragon will be in position to rendezvous and dock with the space station. The spacecraft is designed to do this autonomously but astronauts aboard the spacecraft and the station will be diligently monitoring approach and docking and can take control of the spacecraft if necessary.

The Demo-2 mission will be the final major step before our Commercial Crew Program certifies Crew Dragon for operational, long-duration missions to the space station. This certification and regular operation of Crew Dragon will enable NASA to continue the important research and technology investigations taking place onboard the station, which benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future exploration of the Moon and Mars starting with the agency’s Artemis program, which will land the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface in 2024. 

Get excited and follow along on social media using the hashtag #LaunchAmerica! 

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NASA astronauts and best friends, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, made history Friday, October 18, 2019, by conducting the first all-woman spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS)! The Expedition 61 flight engineers ventured into the vacuum of space at 7:38 a.m. EDT to swap out a failed power controller that regulates the batteries used to collect and distribute power to the orbital laboratory – a task that took a total of seven hours and 17 minutes to complete.

This was Koch’s fourth spacewalk and Meir’s first. Both women, selected as astronaut candidates in 2013, are on their first trip to work and live aboard the space station. Meir will be the 15th woman to spacewalk, and the 14th U.S. woman.

Get to know the astronauts

In addition to being an astronaut, Christina Koch is an engineer and physicist. Her career has taken her to extreme parts of the planet to conduct scientific field missions in places like the Antarctic South Pole and Greenland’s Summit Station. Prior to being selected as an astronaut candidate in 2013, she worked as an Electrical Engineer at our Goddard Space Flight Center’s Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics.

Koch left Earth on March 14, 2019, and is slated to set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman with an expected total of 328 days in space. Her extended mission will provide researchers the opportunity to observe the effects of long-duration spaceflight on a female body in preparation for human missions to the Moon and Mars.

Jessica Meir dreamed of the day she would make it to space since the age of five. That dream became a reality on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019 as she left Earth on her first spaceflight – later floating into her new home aboard the International Space Station.

While Meir’s new home is more than 200 miles over the Earth, she is no stranger to extreme environments. She studied penguins in Antarctica and mapped caves in Italy  –  both of which prepared her for the ultimate extreme environment: space.

#AllWomanSpacewalk, what’s the deal?

The all-woman spacewalk wasn’t something we purposefully planned; it is a testament to the increasing number of female astronauts in the space program. For example, Koch’s and Meir’s 2013 class of astronaut candidates was 50 percent women!

When asked in an interview about the importance of conducting her mission and this spacewalk, Koch said,  

“In the end, I do think it’s important, and I think it’s important because of the historical nature of what we’re doing. In the past women haven’t always been at the table. It’s wonderful to be contributing to the space program at a time when all contributions are being accepted, when everyone has a role. That can lead in turn to increased chance for success. There are a lot of people who derive motivation from inspiring stories of people who look like them, and I think it’s an important story to tell.” 

It’s important to note that spacewalks are not easy; astronauts typically describe them as the most physically challenging thing they do. Assignments are made on the basis of which astronauts are the best prepared to accomplish the tasks at hand under the conditions at the time. Today, Koch and Meir were the top astronauts for the job.

Women are no stranger to spacewalks!

While this was the first spacewalk to be conducted entirely by women, women are no strangers to spacewalks. Exactly 35 years and one week ago, Kathryn Sullivan (pictured above) made her own historic debut as the first U.S. woman to conduct a spacewalk. Since then, a total of 14 women (15 including Jessica) have ventured into the vacuum of space on 40 different spacewalks. Former Astronaut Peggy Whitson performed a record number of 10! From Astronauts to mission directors, women have been making their mark at the agency for decades now. A few of our recent pioneers are:

1. Astronaut Kate Rubins: First person to sequence DNA in space
2. Astronaut Peggy Whitson: First woman to command the ISS
3. Sandra Cauffman: Director of our Earth Science’s Division
4. Nicola Fox: Director of our Heliophysics Division
5. Lori Glaze: Director of our Planetary Science Division

Coming soon: The first woman to walk on the Moon

The first all-woman spacewalk is a milestone worth noting and celebrating as we look forward to putting the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024 with our Artemis lunar exploration program. With today’s historic event, we once again set a precedence for women to lead in space exploration.

We hope achievements such as this provide inspiration to you all around the world, proving that hard work can lead you to great heights. This is not just a historic day for NASA, but a moment we can all feel proud of.

Didn’t have time to tune in? Check out the replay, here. Koch was wearing the spacesuit with red stripes, while Meir’s had no stripes.

If you’d like to keep up with Christian Koch and Jessica Meir’s work 254 miles above planet Earth, follow them on Twitter at @Astro_ Christina and @Astro_Jessica. 

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Meet astronaut Jack Fischer…

He was selected as a NASA astronaut in July 2009, and is currently living and working in space for his first time. As you can imagine, going to space for the first time is both nerve-wracking and exciting. You may or may not know just how excited he actually is to be 250 miles above the Earth…To communicate his elation, he has frequently used some version of the word “awesome”.

FYI, that’s a picture of Fischer about to eat a coffee ball on station. For more on his opinion of coffee balls, check THIS out.

Let’s take a look at a few times astronaut Jack Fischer said something in space was “awesome”…

1. Burrito Smothered in Awesomesauce 

Immediately following the hatch opening to the International Space Station and Jack Fischer arriving at his new orbital home, they had the chance to speak to their families. During this time, he explained to his wife what it was like to be in space…obviously using the word awesome in the process: “It’s a burrito of awesomeness, smothered in awesomesauce baby, it’s so beautiful!”

2. Awesome Views from Space

Astronauts commonly say that one of the best parts of being on space station is the view. Earth from 250 miles above can look stunning…or as Fischer puts it…awesome!

3. Tornado of Awesomeness 

Fischer shared this video on his Twitter account on May 6 saying, “Sometimes, on a weekend, you have to spin about wildly…we can call it a tornado of awesomeness—because weightlessness is awesome!”

4. Awesome #SpaceSelfie

This selfie, taken during Fischer’s first-ever spacewalk is AWESOME and shows his cheesing smile from behind his spacesuit helmet. Check out a recap of Fischer’s first spacewalk, conducted on May 12, HERE. 

5. Fondue Pot Bubbling Over with Awesome Sauce

In this video, also taken during Fischer’s first spacewalk on May 12, you can hear his real-time reaction to seeing the Earth from outside the space station. Describing it like a “Ginormous fondue pot, bubbling over with piping hot awesomesauce.”

Why the Burrito References?

You might be wondering where all this burrito talk comes from. In a pre-flight interview, Fischer explained that he doesn’t particularly like sweets…so for his birthday, his wife will commonly make him bean burritos smothered in green chili and cheese! Watch the full video for 5 facts you may not know about Fischer HERE.

Want more awesomeness from Jack Fischer? Follow him on social media for regular, awesome updates!

Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

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ALT

Setting Sail to Travel Through Space: 5 Things to Know about our New Mission

Our Advanced Composite Solar Sail System will launch aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand no earlier than April 23, at 6 p.m. EDT. This mission will demonstrate the use of innovative materials and structures to deploy a next-generation solar sail from a CubeSat in low Earth orbit.

Here are five things to know about this upcoming mission:

Keep reading