Two American astronauts were scheduled to fly on Tuesday International space station NASA officials say they face a slightly higher risk of debris from a Russian test anti-satellite space rocket to replace a damaged antenna (ISS).
NASA TV plans to broadcast the six and a half hour flight into space, starting at 7:10 am ET (12:10 GMT), as astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Brown leave the airport.
The goal is to remove the S-band radio antenna node, which is more than 20 years old, and replace it with a new one located outside the space station.
The faulty antenna has recently lost its ability to send signals to Earth. While other antennas on the space station may have served the same function, mission leaders decided to install an alternative to provide backup.
Marshburn will be working with the Baron when he is parked at the end of a robotic arm operated from inside the station by German astronaut Mathias Maurer from Europe. Space Agency, with the help of NASA spokesman Raj Sari.
The four arrived at the space station on November 11. Spacex The Crew Dragon capsule was launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and connected two Russian astronauts and a NASA astronaut.
Four days later, an undeclared Russian anti-satellite missile test created a low-Earth orbit dump, and seven crew members took refuge in their port buses, allowing them to quickly escape before imminent danger was over. NASA
ISS astronauts discuss evacuation after crash of Russian test spacecraft – audio
A cloud of debris was then dispersed, according to Dana Weigel, deputy manager of the NASA International Space Station. NASA estimates that the remaining fragments represent a “slightly high” background risk to the space station and a 7% greater risk of penetrating astronaut suits than before the Russian rocket test, Weigel told reporters on Monday.
NASA has yet to fully calculate the additional hazards posed by the more than 1,700 large fragments orbiting the station, but there is a 7% greater risk for astronauts to fall into the “good” wobbles previously seen in the “natural environment.”
However, mission managers canceled several minor maintenance work in connection with the spacewalk on Tuesday, Weigel added.
The exercise marks the 245th spacewalk in support of assembly, maintenance and modernization of the space station, marking the 21st consecutive year of humanity this month, NASA said.
