Two NASA astronauts completed a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk this Thursday to replace a defective antenna on the International Space Station, a mission NASA said had a slightly higher risk posed by orbital debris left by the test. from a Russian missile weeks ago.
Astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron left a pressurized chamber in the orbital research laboratory about 400 km above the Earth to begin their work at 8:15 am EDT, one hour ahead of schedule.
The “extra-vehicular activity” (EVA) occurred after a 48-hour delay caused by an orbital debris alert — considered the first delay in more than two decades of space station history — that NASA later deemed unimportant.
The origin of the newly detected debris has not been clarified by NASA. A spokesman said there was no indication that it came from fragments of the defunct satellite that Russia tore apart in a missile test last month.
Thursday’s departure was the fifth spacewalk for Marshburn, 61, a physician and former flight surgeon with two previous trips to orbit, and the first for Barron, 34, a US Navy submarine officer. US and nuclear engineer on her first space flight to NASA.
“It was amazing,” Barron told Marshburn.
During the spacewalk, they removed a faulty S-band radio communications antenna assembly, now over 20 years old, and replaced it with a replacement 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, NASA said.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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