NASA Astronauts Ready for Thursday Spacewalk

NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Anil Menon have received clearance from mission managers for an upcoming spacewalk scheduled for Thursday. The primary objective of the spacewalk is to prepare the International Space Station (ISS) for future power system upgrades by constructing a modification kit on the station’s Starboard 6 truss segment. The spacewalk is projected to last approximately seven hours and is set to commence at 8:35 a.m. EDT.

Prior to the spacewalk, Meir and Menon spent Wednesday in the Quest airlock, fine-tuning tool configurations, arranging spacesuits, and reviewing critical procedures. Flight engineers Jack Hathaway of NASA and Sophie Adenot of ESA provided support with spacesuit configurations and reviewed spacewalk protocols. Hathaway and Adenot will serve as support crew members, managing the astronauts’ entry and exit from their spacesuits and monitoring the spacewalk activities during the mission.

In addition to the spacewalk preparations, Hathaway and Adenot have been engaging in unique physical fitness studies using the European Enhanced Exploration Exercise Device (E4D), located in the Columbus laboratory module. They have been alternating between seated exercise routines to assess the device’s suitability for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Meanwhile, the three cosmonauts aboard the ISS, Roscosmos, have been diligently working on Earth observation studies, inventory management, and inspections of various station components. Flight engineer Andrey Fedyaev and Pyotr Dubrov have been configuring multi-wavelength imagery hardware for an automated overnight photography session of Asian and North American landscapes.

Dubrov also joined flight engineer Anna Kikina for routine hull inspections inside the Zvezda service module.