Astronauts go outside the ISS today to finish six-hour job they couldn’t complete last week
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will venture outside today to complete repair work that couldn’t be finished in their spacewalk last week.
This comes after NASA announced that astronauts aboard the ISS would be performing a spacewalk last Tuesday (August 18) in order to swap out an antenna.
The six-and-a-half hour expedition was conducted by NASA flight engineer Anil Menon and ESA (European Space Agency) flight engineer Sophie Adenot, with her making history as the first French woman to complete a spacewalk.
However, despite the pair beginning their work on replacing the antenna last week, the team ran out of time and will need to return today (August 25) to complete the work.
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After returning to the ISS last week, Adenot said: “What a day. My deepest gratitude goes to everyone who made this possible, pioneers who came before us, but also the incredible teams working behind the scenes today.”
Why are spacewalks so dangerous?
The task is considered to be incredibly dangerous as so much could go wrong when faced with the hostile void that is open space.
As the astronauts leave the safety of the ISS, they have to be vigilant of the risks of debris, which is moving very quickly in the Earth’s orbit, as well as extreme temperatures and the possibility of suit failure.
Another worst case scenario is the risk of becoming separated from the ISS and drifting away.
Recent spacewalks have taken place on the ISS in order to maintain the structure as it approaches the end of its operations, with it expected to be brought down at the end of the decade.
A previous spacewalk took place earlier this month where Menon, along with station commander Jessica Meir, augmented the space station’s power system.
NASA explained: “Meir and Menon spent six hours and 27 minutes building a modification kit on the station’s Starboard 6 truss segment where a roll out solar array is slated to be installed later this year.
“The astronauts still had time for science on Monday and explored microgravity’s effect on physics, the human body, and more. Meir worked in the Destiny laboratory module and swapped physics research hardware for an investigation studying ways to manufacture semiconductor crystals and process metal alloys in weightlessness.”
Other history-making spacewalks outside of the ISS
This isn’t the first historic spacewalk as, back in 1984, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless II shocked the world when he performed the first ever untethered spacewalk, using a jet-powered backpack called the Manned Maneuvering Unit to float freely in space.
At the time, he said: “It may have been one small step for Neil, but it’s a heck of a big leap for me.”
While no one has ever died while conducting a spacewalk, the risks are severe and NASA will often cancel an expedition last minute if the conditions aren’t favorable for the astronauts.