Nasa spacewalk LIVE: ISS astronauts lose mirror during ‘seven hour’ space station operation
TWO Nasa astronauts have embarked on a spacewalk from the International Space Station and you can watch them live.
They ran into some slight trouble early on when they lost one of their wrist mirrors but things soon got back on track.
As astronaut Chris Cassidy was exiting the airlock, his wrist mirror floated away.
He reported that this latest piece of space junk moved away from him at about a foot per second.
Mission Control wasn’t sure how the mirror could have detached from the suit.
Astronauts have mirrors on their spacesuit wrists so they can get better views while working.
Fortunately, this mirror loss was deemed as not risky to any of the crew or the mission.
Cassidy observed no damage to his suit.
The walk is the first spacewalk of two missions to replace some ageing batteries.
Nasa spacewalk: What is it and which astronauts are walking?
Nasa astronauts Chris Cassidy and Robert Behnken have gone on a spacewalk today to replace old nickel-hydrogen batteries outside the ISS.
It’s the 228th spacewalk.
Behnken’s name may sound familiar because he was one of the astronauts on SpaceX’s first manned launch to the ISS back in May.
Nasa said: “The spacewalking astronauts will replace aging nickel-hydrogen batteries for one of two power channels on the far starboard truss (S6 Truss) of the station with new lithium-ion batteries that arrived to the station on a Japanese cargo ship last month.
“The battery replacement work is the culmination of power upgrade spacewalks that began in January 2017.”
Battery replacement up in space is a very complex job.
Since 2017, ISS astronauts have been working to replace 48 of them.
Nasa spacewalk: Date, start time and how to watch
is providing live coverage of the event today, Friday June 26.
The spacewalk itself was scheduled to begin at 11:35am GMT (7:35am EDT) but the astronauts weren’t officially on the walk until around 12:30pm GMT.
They’ll be plenty of time to watch it as it could last as long as seven hours.
Astronaut Cassidy is wearing a spacesuit with red stripes.
Behnken is in a spacesuit without stripes.
What is the ISS?
Here's what you need to know about the International Space Station...
- The International Space Station, often abbreviated to ISS, is a large space craft that orbits Earth and houses astronauts who go up there to complete scientific missions
- Many countries worked together to build it and they work together to use it
- It is made up of many pieces, which astronauts had to send up individually on rockets and put together from 1998 to 2000
- Ever since the year 2000, people have lived on the ISS
- Nasa uses the ISS to learn about living and working in space
- It is approximately 250 miles above Earth and orbits around the planet just like a satellite
- Living inside the ISS is said to be like living inside a big house with five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a gym, lots of science labs and a big bay window for viewing Earth
In other space news, alien life may be lurking in hidden Earth-like ocean on nearby Jupiter moon Europa.
Mysterious signals have been coming from space for over 500 days and scientists aren’t sure why.
And, Elon Musk has said SpaceX’s Starship rocket, which he hopes will put Americans on Mars, is now the company’s “top priority”.
Will you be watching the spacewalk? Let us know in the comments…
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