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NASA, ESA Astronauts Complete Spacewalk for Antenna Installation
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In Short: NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and ESA's Sophie Adenot completed a 6-hour, 49-minute spacewalk to install a new retroflector and prepare for future repairs on the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Sophie Adenot successfully concluded their spacewalk outside the International Space Station, focusing on installing a new retroflector to aid in spacecraft navigation and preparing for the replacement of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer’s heat-rejecting radiator.
During the mission, they also partially installed jumper cables for the electrical systems and began work on the spectrometer’s radiator replacement, with the remaining work deferred for a future spacewalk.
Adenot faced some mobility issues with her left arm during the spacewalk, but the mission was otherwise successful.
This was Meir’s seventh spacewalk and Adenot’s third, with Meir now ranking third among women at NASA for total spacewalks.
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- NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot concluded their spacewalk outside the International Space Station at 3:29 p.m.
- During the 6-hour, 49-minute spacewalk, Meir and Adenot installed a new retroflector on the forward port of the space station’s Harmony module to support spacecraft navigation during rendezvous and docking operations.
- They also partially completed work to install jumper cables for electrical systems and started work to prepare for the replacement of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer’s heat-rejecting radiator on a future spacewalk.
- Mission Control deferred installing the remaining guide studs for the spectrometer’s replacement radiator so engineers can develop a plan to finish the work during a future spacewalk.
- During the spacewalk, Adenot experienced some mobility issues with her left arm.
- spacewalk 99 was Meir’s seventh and Adenot’s third.
- Meir now ranks third all-time among woman at NASA for total spacewalks, behind Peggy Whitson (10) and Suni Williams (9).
- It also was the 284th spacewalk in support of space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
Sources
- NASA (.gov)link