Two NASA astronauts ventured outdoors the Worldwide Area Station early Tuesday, persevering with ongoing work to improve the lab's growing old solar energy system. Trying on from contained in the lab was Mark Vande Hei, finishing his 340th day in area on the best way to a brand new single-flight document for a U.S. astronaut.
Retired astronaut Scott Kelly logged 340 days and eight hours in orbit throughout a virtually year-long station keep in 2015-16, simply setting a document for the longest single flight by a NASA astronaut. Vande Hei was on observe to maneuver previous Kelly's mark Tuesday and is predicted to log a complete off 355 days off planet by the point he returns to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on March 30.
"I feel it is nice," Kelly advised CBS Information in a current cellphone interview. "What is the saying, data are made to be damaged? And which means we're doing issues higher than we did it earlier than. So yeah, congratulations to him."
As for the battle in Ukraine and tense relations between the US and Russia, NASA managers say each side proceed working collectively to function the Worldwide Area Station and that Vande Hei will come residence as initially deliberate together with two Russian cosmonauts.
"I can let you know for positive Mark is coming residence on that Soyuz," Joel Montalbano, area station program supervisor, advised reporters Monday. "We're in communication with our Russian colleagues, there isn't any fuzz on that. The three crew members are coming residence."
Aboard the area station Tuesday, astronauts Kayla Barron and Raja Chari switched their spacesuits to battery energy at 8:12 a.m. ET to formally kick off the second of as much as 16 spacewalks, or EVAs, deliberate this yr. Six will probably be carried out by NASA astronauts engaged on the facility improve and 10 by cosmonauts outfitting new Russian lab and docking modules.
Spacewalk veteran Barron was assigned a swimsuit with purple stripes and the radio name signal EV-1. Chari, making his first spacewalk, wore an unmarked swimsuit and used the decision signal EV-2.
The objective of the tour was to put in assist brackets on the base of a right-side photo voltaic wing so new ISS roll-out photo voltaic array blankets — IROSAs — might be hooked up later this yr to feed extra energy into the area station's electrical system.
The area station was initially geared up with 4 photo voltaic array wings, two on all sides of a protracted truss stretching the size of a soccer area. Every wing is made up of two 39-foot-wide blankets extending 112 toes in reverse instructions. The oldest wing was launched in December 2000 and the latest in 2009.
The arrays feed energy into eight electrical circuits, two per wing. When the station is in daylight, the arrays cost batteries and ship energy to the lab's myriad programs. Throughout night time passes, the batteries feed saved energy to the station.
Photo voltaic cells degrade over time and NASA is including six new blankets in a $103 million improve. Every of the brand new IROSA blankets measure 20 toes large by 63 toes lengthy when absolutely prolonged at an angle to the underlying wing.
The primary two IROSA blankets had been put in on the left outboard photo voltaic wing to enhance energy channels 2B and 4B throughout spacewalks final June. Brackets to assist IROSA blankets on the left inboard channel 4A array had been put in throughout a September EVA.
Tuesday's spacewalk was dedicated to putting in assist brackets on the right-side inboard photo voltaic wing on the base of the facility channel 3A wing. The photo voltaic blankets will probably be hooked up late this yr.
If all goes effectively, the ultimate IROSA blankets will probably be put in subsequent yr on the suitable aspect of the facility truss to finish the improve.
"Over the course of the following yr or yr and a half or so we are going to set up all the completely different arrays," stated Dina Contella, area station operations integration supervisor on the Johnson Area Middle.
"These new arrays overlay that legacy arrays and all advised, after we improve six of eight channels, we may have elevated the facility technology from 160 kilowatts to 215 kilowatts."