Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren went out on their first spacewalk this Wednesday to kick off a series of repairs and upgrades to the International Space Station. Kelly, spaceflight veteran on a year-long gig at the ISS, was shown on a live NASA Television broadcast as he embarked on the very first spacewalk of his career, joined by flight engineer and colleague Lindgren.
The Spacewalk Wasn’t Entirely A Cakewalk
It was all fun and excitement for Kjell Lindgren, who accidentally turned on his spacesuit’s water switch too early as he prepared to float outside the airlock. NASA experts in Houston monitored the status of the cooling system of his spacesuit to assert there was no danger or even any changes.
The six hour spacewalk will consist of several tasks to be carried out by the astronauts, including the installation of a thermal over on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a top of the line particle physics detector. This equipment has been attached to the ISS since 2011. The astronauts are also assigned to apply grease to components on the space station’s robotic Canadarm2, and to route cables in preparation for new docking ports for US commercial crew spacecraft, according to NASA.
This Isn’t the ISS’s First Round of TLC
Despite this being the very first time Kelly and Lindgren engage in a period of physical activity engaged outside a spacecraft, this is the 189th time that the ISS does through maintenance and support of space station assembly, but the agency’s excitement and close monitoring never falters.
NASA has recently increased its efforts toward interesting the public with space exploration and man-made missions, and this surely is another attempt to entice the people. Lately, there’s been a lot of focus with engaging the younger generation, since pop culture has recently brought back the trend of space exploration through films such as The Martian, Interstellar and Gravity, as well as TV shows like Cosmos: A Spacetime Oddyssey. Through NASA television, which broadcasts Agency activities and missions, these astronauts’ first spacewalk was celebrated, and one more exciting aspect of space travel and exploration gets revealed to the public. The schedule of all coverage can be found in the NASA Television website.
