Following reports of a sizable piece of approaching Russian trash while thrusters were fired to avoid it, NASA was forced to postpone the planned spacewalk. Frank Rubio and Josh Cassada, two American astronauts, were scheduled to leave the mobile lab to upgrade the power supply of the International Space Station.
The spacewalk was put off for 24 hours so that the ISS Progress 81 cargo ship could use its engines to steer the orbiting laboratory and steer clear of an incoming piece of rocket debris.
The International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA), also known as a roll-out solar array, will be installed on the space station’s truss structure by spacewalkers Rubio and Cassada, says NASA. According to a statement from NASA, the team will move to the station’s opposite side this time and instal the fourth iROSA on the Port-4 truss structure.
About seven hours are anticipated to pass during the spacewalk.
Although it will be the third spacewalk for the two American astronauts, this mission marks the fourth spacewalk specifically intended to place solar panels on the space station. If the task is not finished on Wednesday, Nasa has a backup plan ready for a second spacewalk on December 27.
After the Russian spacewalk was postponed due to a leak on the Soyuz spacecraft connected with the Space Station, the spacewalk is now scheduled for days in the future. The Soyuz MS-22 leak was discovered last week as two Russian cosmonauts prepared to leave the station on a scheduled spacewalk.
Both NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos stated that the incident has not put the station’s crew in any danger. The issue doesn’t imperil the crew, according to Krikalev, but it could impair the equipment part of the capsule’s temperature and how well the coolant system functions.
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