NASA astronauts will embark on a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk Thursday, June 14, during which they will install new high-definition cameras to capture spacecraft docking with the International Space Station, including new American-made spacecraft with scheduled test flights later this year.
Expedition 56 commander Drew Feustel and flight engineer Ricky Arnold of NASA will conduct a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk on Thursday, June 14. Credits: NASA
Live coverage of the planned spacewalk by American astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold will begin at 6:30 a.m. EDT on NASA Television and the agency’s website.
Feustel, commander of the station’s Expedition 56, and flight engineer Arnold are scheduled to begin the spacewalk at 8:10 a.m.
The two spacewalkers will install brackets and high-definition cameras near an international docking adapter mated to the front end of the station’s Harmony module. The additions will provide enhanced views during the final phase of approach and docking of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner commercial crew spacecraft that will soon begin launching from American soil.
During their spacewalk, the astronauts also will swap out a camera assembly on the starboard truss of the station and close an aperture door on an external environmental imaging experiment outside the Japanese Kibo module. The imaging experiment hardware will be discarded on a future SpaceX cargo resupply mission.
The spacewalk will be the 211th in support of space station assembly and maintenance and the sixth station spacewalk this year. It also will be the ninth spacewalk in Feustel’s career and the fifth for Arnold. During the spacewalk, Arnold will wear a suit bearing red stripes while Feustel’s suit will have no stripes.
At five hours and 23 minutes into the spacewalk, Feustel will surpass NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s record of 60 hours and 21 minutes to move into third place for cumulative time spent during spacewalks.
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