NASA Astronauts Will Be Conducting a Spacewalk This Weekend — Here’s How to Watch
NASA via Getty
NASA astronauts have some big plans in space over the next two weekends.
On Sunday, Feb. 28 and Friday, March 5, NASA flight engineers Kate Rubins and Victor Glover Jr. and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi will conduct a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station, according to NASA.
Both spacewalks will last six and a half hours each and can be streamed live on NASA's website and the NASA TV channel.
Coverage for Sunday's spacewalk will begin at 4:30 a.m. ET, exactly 90 minutes before the participating astronauts are expected to begin their walk. The March 5 spacewalk will begin coverage at 5:30 a.m and the astronauts will start their journey at 7:00 a.m.
According to NASA, these spacewalks will be the 235th and 236th in the station's history.
NASA via Getty
NASA via Getty
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In Sunday's spacewalk, Rubins and Glover will step outside of the space station to assemble and install modification kits for upcoming solar ray upgrades. Rubins will be extravehicular crew member 1 (EV 1) wearing red stripes, while Glover will be extravehicular crew member 2 (EV 2) and wear a suit with no stripes, NASA said.
Then on March 5, Rubins will venture outside the ISS again to complete several tasks with Noguchi by her side, including venting ammonia from the Early Ammonia System and installing a "stiffener" on the Quest airlock thermal cover to keep it from "blowing out when residual atmosphere escapes as the hatch is opened."
Rubins will be EV 1 and Noguchi will be EV 2 during that mission, per NASA.
The two spacewalks will be the third and fourth in Rubins' career. The Feb. 28 spacewalk will be Glover's third, and the March 5 spacewalk will be Noguchi's fourth.
NASA Astronauts/Twitter Kate Rubins
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Rubins became the 60th woman to fly to space when she reached the ISS on the Soyuz spacecraft on July 7, 2016. She returned to space for her second mission on Oct. 14, 2020, her 42nd birthday, and is expected to come back to Earth in April.
Meanwhile, Noguchi recently made it back to the ISS as part of SpaceX's Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft, which also included Glover, Michael Hopkins and Shannon Walker. They have all been in space since takeoff in November 2020 and will remain in orbit until the springtime.
