Crew Keeps Up Spacewalk Preps, Research, and Cargo Operations

Crew Keeps Up Spacewalk Preps, Research, and Cargo Operations

Expedition 75 is continuing preparations for the second and final spacewalk in a series of two to upgrade the International Space Station's power generation system. The orbital residents are also conducting microgravity research and transferring cargo in and out of a U.S. cargo spacecraft.

Flight engineers Joshua Kutryk of CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and Anil Menon of NASA spent Tuesday organizing the tools and studying the procedures they will use during a spacewalk scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m. EST on Thursday. Kutryk and Menon started their shift inside the Quest airlock staging their spacewalking tools and inspecting the tethers that will secure the astronauts to the orbital outpost. Afterward, the pair reviewed the activities planned for the seven-hour excursion to install the eighth and final roll-out solar array on the orbital outpost's starboard truss structure.

The installation job will complete the years-long process that began in June 2021 to augment the space station's power generating capacity from 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts. NASA+ and a variety of other streaming platforms will begin live continuous spacewalk coverage at 7 a.m. on Thursday.

NASA flight engineers Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney also studied Thursday's spacewalking procedures. Watkins and Delaney will assist Kutryk and Menon in and out of their spacesuits, monitor the spacewalking duo, and operate the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

Delaney started his shift pedaling on the Destiny laboratory module's exercise cycle while wearing the Bio-Monitor's sensor-packed vest and headband. His heart activity, blood pressure, and breathing rate were measured to observe how the cardiorespiratory system adapts to weightlessness, informing crew health measures on future missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Delaney also joined Menon and Watkins during a break in spacewalk preparations and swapped payloads inside a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft that docked to the Harmony module's space-facing port on Oct. 15. Dragon is expected to return to Earth in mid-November packed with completed science experiments and space station hardware for analysis.

Working in the orbiting complex's Roscosmos segment, station commander Pyotr Dubrov installed Earth observation gear and programmed it for a daylong session to photograph landmarks in the Indian and Pacific oceans. Flight engineer Sergey Teteryatnikov completed a 24-hour session wearing electrodes that measured his heart activity and blood pressure, then studied super intelligence tools to boost crew efficiency. Flight engineer Anna Kikina started her shift by transferring water from the Progress 96 cargo spacecraft then inspected and cleaned ventilation systems inside the Zvezda service module.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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