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After a delay, NASA astronauts prepare for another spacewalk

Two NASA astronauts are ready to embark on a spacewalk, this Thursday (2nd), to replace a defective antenna on the International Space Station (ISS). The task will begin after a 48-hour delay caused by an alert of “orbital debris,” which the agency later found not to be cause for concern.

NASA TV is planning live coverage of the spacewalk, which is expected to last between 6 and 12 hours, scheduled to start at 9:10 am GMT.

Astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron will emerge from a research lab’s inner tube into orbit about 402 km above Earth.

The tour is the fifth spacewalk by Marshburn, 61, a physician and former flight surgeon with two previous voyages in orbit, and the first by Barron, 34, a US Navy officer and nuclear engineer on his first spaceflight for NASA .

The goal is to remove a faulty radio communication antenna, which has been in place for more than 20 years, and replace it with a reserve stored outside the space station.

The space station is equipped with other antennas that can perform the same functions, but installing a replacement system ensures an optimal level of “communications redundancy,” NASA said.

Marshburn will work with Barron while they are positioned at the end of a robotic arm maneuvered from within by German astronaut Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency, with the help of NASA crewmate Raja Chari.

The four arrived at the space station Nov. 11 in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, joining two Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei already aboard the orbiting outpost. .

Four days later, an anti-satellite missile test conducted without warning by Russia generated a debris field in low Earth orbit, forcing the seven ISS crew members to shelter in their docked spacecraft to allow a quick escape until immediate danger pass, he told NASA.

The residual cloud of debris from the detonated satellite has since dispersed, according to Dana Weigel, deputy manager of NASA’s ISS program.

But NASA calculates that the remaining fragments continue to pose a “slightly increased” risk to the space station as a whole, and a 7% greater risk of puncturing spacewalker suits, compared to before Russia’s missile test, Weigel told reporters last Monday.

However, NASA determined that these risk levels, while elevated, fell within tolerable limits and moved ahead with preparations to conduct the spacewalk as originally planned on Tuesday.

Hours before the start of the operation, NASA received an alert from US military space trackers of a newly detected threat of a wreckage collision, requesting that mission control delay the extra-vehicle activity (EVA) mission.

On Tuesday afternoon, NASA said its assessment concluded that the debris in question – its origin has not been clarified – posed no risk to spacewalkers or the station, and the antenna replacement was rescheduled for Thursday. in the morning.

Thursday’s exercise marks the 245th spacewalk in support of the assembly and maintenance of the space station, which this month surpassed 21 years of continuous human presence, NASA said.

A NASA spokesman, Gary Jordan, said the postponement of this week’s spacewalk was considered the first for the season caused by a wreckage alert.

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Reference: CNN Brasil

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