A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched Crew-5 NASA Astronauts on the Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) on October 5, 2022. It is the company’s fifth operational mission for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program that returned human spaceflight capabilities to the United States. The four crewmembers: NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina arrived at the Space Station on October 6, 2022, after a 29-hour voyage. They have been performing science research in microgravity and are scheduled to return to Earth sometime in March after around six months. 

NASA Astronaut Nicole Mann and JAXA Astronaut Koichi Wakata will perform a spacewalk on Thursday, February 2nd. The agency will broadcast the spacewalk Live via NASA TV starting at 6:45 a.m. ET, video is linked below. It is amazing to watch the operation in real time as the astronauts appear to float in microgravity with breathtaking views of Earth in the background as the ISS orbits the planet at a speed of 28,000 kilometers per hour. At this speed, the Station completes an entire orbit around Earth every 90 minutes and the crew experiences a total of 16 sunrises and sunsets daily. The upcoming spacewalk will be 7-hours long. 

Mann and Wakata will wake up early to put on their Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs), also known as spacesuits. They will power on the EMUs life support systems at 8:15 a.m. ET to begin the spacewalk. They will exit the ISS “Quest airlock into the vacuum of space and maneuver to the starboard truss structure. Once they arrive at the Starboard-4 truss, they will complete a modification kit installation job they began on January 20 to prepare the station for its next roll-out solar array,” shared agency representatives. 

The installation is part of a series of spacewalks to install new International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs) to augment the ISS’s power channels. Four iROSAs have been installed so far, and the brave astronauts are expected to install at least two more during this week’s spacewalk. It will be NASA’s 259th spacewalk to upgrade the ISS. The SpaceX Crew-5 mission is the first time Mann ever traveled to space. Before working at NASA, she served the U.S. Marine Corps and was deployed twice during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Japanese JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata has extensive experience working in space, he has traveled to ISS five times.

VIDEO: NASA TV Live Broadcast 

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Featured Image Source: NASA