Christmas Eve Spacewalk Attempts To Finish Repairs To ISS [Watch Live]
A rare Christmas Eve spacewalk thousands of miles above the Earth is taking place as astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) attempt to finish repairs to the crippled base. NASA scheduled the spacewalk as astronauts work to fix the problems that have plagued the station.
The Christmas Eve spacewalk is scheduled for 4:10 am PST and is expected to last for about six-and-a-half hours if everything goes as scheduled.
This is the second time astronauts have had to go out and make repairs stemming from a pump malfunction in one of the space station’s two external ammonia cooling loops. The loops are essential for keeping instruments inside and outside the station from overheating.
On Saturday, during a five-and-a-half hour spacewalk, the astronauts disconnected the pump from four ammonia fluid lines and moved it to a temporary storage unit on the outside of the ISS. During the Christmas Eve spacewalk, the same two astronauts will move a spare pump into place and, if possible, connect it to the ammonia fluid lines.
The spacewalk had to be moved from Monday to Tuesday, when there was a small possibility that some water got into the temperature control system of Rick Mastracchio’s suit after the astronauts returned to the ISS.
Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins were originally scheduled to perform three of the dangerous walks, but they were able to complete a large amount of work on Saturday NASA believes two spacewalks will suffice, but if a third spacewalk is needed, it will probably be performed on Christmas day.
This is only the second time in history that a Christmas Eve spacewalk will take place, and NASA hopes to finally complete the repairs needed for the ISS astronauts to perform their duties in the aging space station.
On Sunday, astronaut Mike Hopkins tweeted this photo:
Wow…can’t believe that is me yesterday. Wish I could find the words to describe the experience, truly amazing pic.twitter.com/FnjM5DLHSg
— Mike Hopkins (@AstroIllini) December 22, 2013
Hopkins also shared that he built a space suit to allow him to complete the spacewalk safely, as well as other spectacular photos of Earth.
Built a space suit yesterday with @AstroRM. Pretty cool day. pic.twitter.com/wGrUtcApPw
— Mike Hopkins (@AstroIllini) December 19, 2013
Incidentally, today December 24, is the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 8 crew trip from the Earth to the Moon and back again, which gave us this stunning photo.
NASA has established several channels on which viewers can enjoy the fascinating spacewalk.
Expedition 38 Flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins are performing the dangerous Christmas Eve spacewalk as we write this article. Watch them do their amazing work below.
