The International Space Station (ISS) crew is preparing for two upcoming spacewalks to service and upgrade the orbiting laboratory.
The two spacewalks are set on Oct. 28 and Nov. 6 wherein U.S. astronauts Kjell Lindgren and Scott Kelly will step out of ISS' Quest airlock for maintenance and assembly missions. Expedition 45 commander Kelly will be given the 189th spacewalk privilege while flight engineer Kjell Lindgren will be given the 190th.
"Probably one of the most important objectives that we had laid for this year was to do some reconfigurations as part of getting ready for some of our commercial crew vehicles in the next couple of years. And so we had set some milestones forward for ourselves to try and accomplish this year," said International Space Station's operations integration manager Kenneth Todd.
The Oct. 28 spacewalk will cover the maintenance and upgrades of the space station. This includes the installation of Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer's thermal cover. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is a groundbreaking particle physics sensor installed in 2011. The live broadcast of NASA TV starts at 6:45 A.M. with the spacewalk scheduled to commence at 8:10 A.M and is expected to last for six hours and 30 minutes.
The Nov. 6 spacewalk will cover the restoration of the port truss ammonia cooling system. Back in Nov. 2012, astronauts attempted to isolate a truss cooling supply leak during a spacewalk mission. However, the leak was later traced to a different sector. NASA TV will begin airing at 5:45 A.M. on this day, but the spacewalk will commence at 7:10 A.M.
Both spacewalks will be the 'firsts' for the two American astronauts and just in time for the 15th anniversary of human presence on board the space station, which is celebrated every 2nd of November.
