Astronauts Wind Down After Spacewalk, Reap Space Harvest

NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins takes an out-of-this-world "space-selfie" during Monday's spacewalk.
NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins takes an out-of-this-world “space-selfie” during Monday’s spacewalk.

Two spacewalkers and their assistants are winding down today following two spacewalks in less than a week. There was also a harvest today aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 64 crew learns about space agriculture.

NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover completed their second spacewalk together on Monday wrapping up a years-long effort to upgrade the station’s power system. They relaxed Tuesday morning before spending the afternoon on a spacewalk conference and space botany.

The duo joined astronauts Kate Rubins of NASA and Soichi Noguchi of JAXA and called down to spacewalk engineers after lunchtime today. The quartet briefed the specialists on any concerns or issues they had during the Jan. 27 and Feb. 1 spacewalks.

Hopkins spent the rest of the afternoon harvesting plants growing inside the Columbus laboratory module’s Veggie facility. Afterward, he joined his astronaut crewmates including Flight Engineer Shannon Walker and snacked on the freshly picked pak choi, wasabi mustard, kale, and red romaine for a taste test.

In the station’s Russian segment, Commander Sergey Ryzhikov worked on computers, life science hardware and Zarya module maintenance. Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov worked on orbital plumbing tasks and radiation checks then work on a pair of Earth observation experiments.



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