Two of the astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) will soon be performing a pair of exciting spacewalks, one to install new equipment and another to perform upgrades to the outer part of the station. The first spacewalk will be this week, on Wednesday, January 27, and the second will be next week, on Monday, February 1.
NASA will be livestreaming both full spacewalks and we’ve got all the details on how you can watch both events live.
What to expect from the spacewalks
The two spacewalks will be conducted by NASA Flight Engineers Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover, both of whom arrived at the ISS on the SpaceX Crew Dragon on its first operations mission in November of last year.
The first spacewalk will complete work on the cabling and rigging for the European Space Agency’s Bartolomeo platform, which is attached to the station’s Columbus module. Bartolomeo will host scientific and commercial projects, including a device for measuring plasma in the space environment. Preparations for its arrival began with modifications to the outside of the space station last year.
The second spacewalk will include the installation of an adapter plate for lithium-ion batteries, part of an upgrade of the station’s power systems that have been running since 2017.
To see more details about what the crew will be doing, you can check out the preview animations provided by NASA showing the plans for the spacewalks.
How to watch the spacewalks
Both of the spacewalks will be livestreamed on NASA TV. The streams will show preparations for the spacewalks, then the full duration of each walk, which will be around six-and-a-half hours. NASA commentators will explain the steps the astronauts are taking and the processes they are following.
The livestreams will begin at 5:30 a.m. ET on the day of each spacewalk, Wednesday, January 27, and Monday, February 1. The spacewalks themselves will each begin around 7 a.m. ET and are expected to run until around 1:30 p.m. ET on both days.
To watch the livestreams, you can either head to NASA’s website or use the video player embedded at the top of this page.
