Two astronauts performed a five-hour spacewalk to change batteries to their power system
Two astronauts performed a spacewalk together last Friday. ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough spent five hours and 58 minutes outside the space station to change the batteries to their power system. Of these two astronauts, Pesquet was on his first spacewalk ever.
The two astronauts went out into space in order to replace the nickel-hydrogen batteries that use energy from the solar panels of the station with new lithium-ion batteries brought on the Japanese cargo ship. They were also able to perform other tasks besides the changing of the batteries. They removed a camera that no longer worked, put a protective cover on a docking port, installed handrails for future spacewalks, and took pictures of all the equipment in order to send them for supervision and analysis.
This was the second spacewalk performed in a week for the upgrading of the power supply. Kimbrough, together with another NASA astronaut, Peggy Whitson, spent six hours and 32 minutes in space on January 6th in order to install adapter plates and connect some of the new batteries.
Spacewalking is not an easy activity to perform, therefore they had to prepare intensely for this. They spent months at NASA’s Space Center practicing for the moment and then came for the last weeks in space in order to prepare the suits and tools necessary for spacewalking.
The last spacewalking operation was controlled by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano. He guided the team on their task and supported them via radio, offering help and information regarding their future tasks. Parmitano is also an experienced spacewalker. He spent six months in space in 2013 and undertook two spacewalking missions.
Pesquet proved really excited about the mission he had and the amazing experience that was spacewalking. He is thankful to the entire team of astronauts that designed the equipment and conducted the spacewalking missions. He is also grateful to those who trained him and his other spacewalking peers and helped them make no mistakes.
Pesquet, except from being part of many research activities for the space station, is also performing experiments for ESA and France’s Space agency. Now that the spacewalking is over, the International Space Station will return to their usual experiments.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
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