Spacewalk Wraps Up With Upgrades on European Lab Module

Spacewalkers Victor Glover (top) and Michael Hopkins are pictured working on upgrades to the Bartomoleo science platform attached to Europe's Columbus lab module. Credit: NASA TV
Spacewalkers Victor Glover (top) and Michael Hopkins are pictured working on upgrades to the Bartolomeo science platform attached to Europe’s Columbus lab module. Credit: NASA TV

NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover concluded their spacewalk at 1:24 p.m. EST, after 6 hours and 56 minutes. The two NASA astronauts completed a number of tasks designed to upgrade International Space Station systems.

The crew installed a Ka-band antenna, known as COL-Ka, on the outside of the ESA (European Space Agency) Columbus module, which will enable an independent, high-bandwidth communication link to European ground stations. Bartolomeo is partially operational and in a safe configuration following the connection of four of six cables to the science platform, and the final two cables that could not be connected will be attended to on a future spacewalk.

During the spacewalk, Hopkins and Glover also removed a pair of grapple fixture brackets on the far port (left) truss in preparation for future power system upgrades. Glover also worked to replace a suspected broken pin inside the station’s airlock as a “get ahead” task, but teams determined that a replacement pin was not needed after an inspection confirmed the current pin to be functioning properly.

Space station crew members have conducted 233 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory. Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 61 days, 1 hours, and 47 minutes working outside the station.

Hopkins has now completed his third spacewalk for total of 19 hours and 54 minutes outside the space station. This was the first spacewalk for Glover with a total of 6 hours and 56 minutes.

On Feb. 1, Hopkins and Glover will conduct another spacewalk to address a variety of tasks, including installation of a final lithium-ion battery adapter plate on the port 4 (P4) truss that will wrap up battery replacement work begun in January 2017. Hopkins and Glover will remove another grapple fixture bracket on the same truss segment, replace an external camera on the starboard truss, install a new high-definition camera on the Destiny laboratory, and replace components for the Japanese robotic arm’s camera system outside the Kibo module.

Learn more about station activities by following @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.



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