NASA and its European counterpart, ESA, are preparing for a spacewalk that will take place on Wednesday, June 16.
Read on to find out how you can watch a livestream of the event.
The spacewalk will be undertaken by NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet.
It’s their first spacewalk — or extravehicular activity (EVA) to use the official terminology — since the pair joined the station’s Expedition 65 in April. Kimbrough has previously participated in six other spacewalks, while this will be Pesquet’s third. It’s not the first time they’ve worked together, either, as they conducted two spacewalks together as part of Expedition 50 in 2017.
Following Wednesday’s spacewalk, Kimbrough and Pesquet will participate in a second one on Sunday, June 20.
The upcoming EVAs will involve the critical work of installing newly arrived solar arrays as part of ongoing upgrade work to the space station’s power systems.
French astronaut Pesquet recently tweeted several photos (below) showing himself and Kimbrough trying out their spacesuits ahead of Wednesday’s spacewalk.
OFV (we LOVE acronyms in the space industry): On-orbit Fit Verification: we tried out our spacesuits before taking them out later this week. @Astro_Sabot worked hard to get us in our suits. It might seem like we’re getting a foot massage, but we’re not! #MissionAlpha pic.twitter.com/XsylOzpDPl
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) June 13, 2021
Before departing Earth, Pesquet also featured in a video showing how astronauts use a giant pool at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston, Texas, to train for EVAs.
How to watch
NASA will begin its livestream of Wednesday’s spacewalk event at 6:30 a.m. ET (3:30 a.m. PT). The first 90 minutes will show the final preparations before Kimbrough and Pesquet exit the ISS at about 8 a.m. ET (5 a.m. PT). The spacewalk is expected to last between six and seven hours. You can watch it by hitting the play button on the video player embedded at the top of this page. NASA’s website will also show the same live feed.
Cameras placed on the exterior of the ISS and the astronauts themselves will show the entirety of the EVA. The event will be accompanied by a narrator explaining what’s happening at each stage of the spacewalk, and you’ll even get to hear the live audio feed between the astronauts and Mission Control back on Earth.
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