NASA SpaceX Crew-3 Astronauts Will Conduct A Spacewalk To Replace A ‘Faulty Antenna’ At The Space Station –Watch It Live!

SpaceX launched its fifth crewed mission and third operational flight, Crew-3, under NASA’s Commercial Crew program on November 10. Crew-3 NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, Raja Chari, and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer, lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket aboard the Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft. They arrived to the International Space Station (ISS) after a 22-hour voyage on November 11. It is the first spaceflight for Barron, Chari, and Maurer. Marshburn is a veteran astronaut, he has traveled to outer space three times.

Now that the crew has settled-in and adjusted to microgravity for two weeks, they are tasked with conducting a spacewalk, formally known as ‘extravehicular activity’ or ‘EVA’, for short. The spacewalk is scheduled for Tuesday, November 30 at 5:30 a.m. EST. During the spacewalk Marshburn and Barron will swap a 'faulty' communications antenna outside the Space Station. The rest of the crewmembers will monitor the EVA from aboard ISS. The spacewalk is expected to take approximately 6 hours and 30 minutes to complete. The agency will livestream it via NASA TV, linked in the video below

“Marshburn and Barron will work at the Port 1 (P1) truss structure, where the antenna is mounted. The antenna recently lost its ability to send signals to Earth via NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System,” the agency shared in a press release. “Although its degradation has had limited impact on station operations, mission managers decided to install a new antenna to ensure communications redundancy.”

NASA astronaut Marshburn has experience in working in microgravity with a total of 5 spacewalks he performed throughout his career. He will work in tandem with NASA astronaut Barron during her first extravehicular activity, while ESA Astronaut Maurer controls the ISS robotic arm to aid the antenna swap operation. To identify the crewmembers from ground control, Marshburn will wear a spacesuit with red stripes and identified as extravehicular crew member 1 (EV1) and Barron will be extravehicular crew member 2 (EV2), without any marks on her suit. 

Featured Image Source: NASA