Two astronauts from the NASA they will venture out of the International Space Station for a spacewalk today June 13th. Tracy Caldwell Dyson And Matthew Dominick they will perform the extravehicular activity (EVA) starting from 2pm Italian time: it will last approximately 6.5 hours. It is possible to follow the operations thanks to NASA’s live broadcast (video below): coverage will begin at 12:30 pm Italian time.
During the spacewalk, the duo will recover a faulty piece of communications equipment, known as a radio frequency assembly. Dyson will also swab outside the Space Station to collect samples for a study on microorganisms in extreme microgravity environments.
“There’s a group of scientists who are very interested in this, for example, to go to Mars and figure out what we might bring with us to the Martian surface – accidentally discover something on the Martian surface that actually came from us, that kind of thing,” Dina Contella, NASA’s deputy program manager for the International Space Station, explained previously during a press conference.
Today’s EVA is the 1st of 3 spacewalks geared towards research and maintenance of the orbital laboratory. The subsequent ones should also take place this summer. Having an EVA on the agenda today has influenced the schedule of the capsule’s first astronaut mission Starliner BoeingThe Crew Flight Test (CFT).
The mission launched with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on June 5. Docking with the ISS took place the next day, and the crew was supposed to remain on board for about a week: Wilmore and Williams, however, recently extended their mission by several days and they are now expected to return to Earth no earlier than June 18th.
NASA announced the postponement, citing the need for extra time for the Station’s current astronauts to prepare for today’s EVA. The additional days in orbit will also allow Wilmore, Williams and ground teams to perform additional checks on Starliner before re-entry to Earth.
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