An astronaut of Indian origin floated around the ISS and made some changes in what can be considered a large and successful spacewalk. The spacewalk taken on Wednesday involved astronauts from the ISS Expedition 66 team. The Indian astronaut was also accompanied by an astronaut representing ESA. Read below all about the spacewalk and what adjustments the astronauts have made.
Spacewalk report
As soon as the clock struck 6:02 PM IST, the two astronauts donned their spacesuits. This marked the beginning of the 248th spacewalk conducted by the ISS to date. Specifically, this is the first spacewalk for Matthias Maurer and the second for Raja Chari. As reported by spaceflightnow, Raja Chari had a seamless flight in which he was docked to a robotic arm. When the radio control team tried to contact him. He stated that the operations went smoothly while joking that this was “even better than business class”.
Your job: cable management.
Your gear: thick, pressurized gloves.
Your location: space.Could you do it? @Astro_Raja and @Astro_Matthias did as they installed @Space station hardware upgrades during a spacewalk: pic.twitter.com/oE21KuIsEs
— NASA (@NASA) March 23, 2022
The Indian astronaut was also responsible for assisting his partner when the camera came loose from his helmet. Raja Chari reportedly reached out to help ESA astronaut Maurer, while using a pair of wire ties and putting them back in place. While repairing the camera was essential to the success of this spacewalk, readers note that it cost them time and forced the astronauts to drop some lower-priority tasks that had been planned in advance.
What are the modifications to the ISS?
The two astronauts responsible for conducting this spacewalk routed new hoses to the stations’ Radiator Beam Valve Module. This helped them regulate the internal temperature of the ISS. In addition, Chari and Maurer have installed refurbished ammonia jumpers in the cooling system. This would help them to gain full efficiency. They also helped replace a high-definition camera and pushed power connections to a
experiment platform. Particularly at the end of the spacewalk, the ESA astronaut had some water under his helmet, but he was safe.
Two astronauts are taking a spacewalk today!
ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and NASA’s Raja Chari are scheduled to leave the airlock around 13:50 CET, after which they will work outside the ISS for approximately 6.5 hours.
The first spacewalk for Matthias Maurer! pic.twitter.com/4CudE4v11E
— Everything ESA (@EuropeSpace360) March 23, 2022