Watch live: Astronauts step out of the International Space Station for seven-hour spacewalk

Oliver Browning
Thursday 02 February 2023 13:31 GMT
Comments
Space Station
Space Station

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Watch live as astronauts step out of the International Space Station for what is expected to be a seven-hour spacewalk.

Mission managers have given the go-ahead for flight engineers Nicole Mann of NASA and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to complete a modification kit installation job they began on 20 January, to prepare the station for its next roll-out solar arrays (iROSAs).

The pair concluded their spacewalk 13 days ago after 7 hours and 21 minutes - with today’s effort expecting to take a similar amount of time.

The installation is part of a series of spacewalks to augment the ISS’s power channels with new iROSAs.

Four have been installed so far, and two more are expected to be mounted to the platforms installed during this spacewalk in the future.

According to SciTechDaily, Mann and Wakata on Wednesday started preparing their spacesuits and components inside the Quest airlock.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in