Spacewalking astronauts tackle more solar panel advance work: Read details

After a 7 hours and 4 minutes long spacewalk just earlier this week, two NASA scientists accomplished another spacewalk to get the International Space Station ready for new solar panels. NASA’s Kate Rubins and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi went ahead with the incomplete work from this week’s earlier spacewalk. This is Rubins’ second spacewalk in the week. The scientists needed to finish installing mounting brackets and struts, and tighten some sticky bolts.

Read: NASA Astronauts Work On Solar Array Upgrade As A Part Of A 7-hour-long Spacewalk: Watch

Another spacewalk 

During the previous spacewalk, the two scientists, Kate Rubins and Victor Glove, began work by installing modification kits required for the upcoming solar array upgrades. They worked near the farthest set of existing solar arrays on the station’s left side, known as P6. Victor built a bracket structure and then he worked with Rubins to attach the bracket and support struts to the mast canister. Earlier, NASA uploaded a video that showed both the astronauts working outside the space station. They can be seen installing bracket support structures at the base of the station’s solar arrays. Another video from Kate’s helmet shows her working to secure a bolt on the bracket support structures at the base of the solar arrays. According to the caption, at that time, the space station was flying 261 miles over Venezuela and was about to pass Brazil.

Read: China Is Training Astronauts For Four Crewed Missions This Year

Upgrading power grid 

According to the reports by AP, NASA is upgrading the space station’s power grid. This is being done to accommodate more astronauts and experiments. The eight solar panels up there now have degraded over time; the oldest were launched 20 years ago. Rubins will return to Earth in mid-April in a Russian capsule. Also, Noguchi, Glover along with two other NASA astronauts will fly SpaceX back in late April or May.

Read: NASA Offering $500,000 To Invent New Systems To Feed Astronauts On Space Missions

Also Read: SpaceX's Dragon Crew Will Break US Record For Most Days In Space On February 7