UPDATE: The spacewalk was postponed due to a “spacesuit discomfort issue.” A new schedule has yet to be announced.
NASA is making final preparations for its first spacewalk of 2024, and you can watch the event live when it takes place on Thursday, June 13.
Astronauts Tracy C. Dyson and Matt Dominick will leave the confines of the International Space Station (ISS) via the Quest airlock and set to work on removing a faulty electronics box, known as a radio frequency group, from a communications antenna on the starboard truss of the orbital outpost.
The two astronauts will also spend some of their time collecting microorganisms from the exterior of the ISS for research that will help scientists gain a clearer understanding about how such microorganisms survive and reproduce on the exterior of the Earth-orbiting satellite.
This will be the fourth spacewalk for Dyson, while Dominick will be embarking on his first one. Both astronauts arrived at the ISS in March, Dyson on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and Dominick on a SpaceX Crew Dragon as part of Crew-8.
The last NASA spacewalk took place in November 2023, but including Thursday’s, there will be three taking place over the next three weeks, with the other two scheduled for June 24 and July 2. There’s been one other spacewalk at the station this year, in April, though that one was conducted by two cosmonauts and overseen by Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency.
How to watch
The coverage for Thursday’s spacewalk will start at 6:30 a.m. ET, while the walk itself will begin at about 8 a.m. ET.
Lasting around six-and-a-half hours, the entirety of the spacewalk will be streamed in real time on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, NASA’s YouTube channel, and the agency’s website. You can also watch it via the player embedded at the top of this page.
Dyson can be identified by the red stripes on her suit, while Dominick’s suit will be unmarked.
Multiple cameras will track the astronauts during their time outside the ISS, and you’ll also be able to hear a live audio feed as the astronauts communicate with Mission Control back on Earth. Commentary by NASA will also be provided so that viewers can fully understand the various activities undertaken by the two astronauts.
