Friday’s Spacewalk Prepared as SpaceX Dragon Delivers Cargo Successfully to Space Station

The SpaceX Dragon cargo craft has successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) after launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center just a day earlier. The craft was carrying over 7,000 pounds of crew supplies, station hardware, and science experiments. Both spacecraft were orbiting 259 miles above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan when the docking took place, with the last rays of an orbital sunset providing illumination to the cloud tops. Credit: NASA

Expedition 69’s crew is currently unpacking Dragon's contents, including roll-out solar arrays that will be installed onto the ISS. NASA and UAE flight engineers will manage the payload after it has been docked with the Harmony module. The team is also juggling both scientific activities and the preparation of these arrays for a scheduled spacewalk, where robotic arm Canadarm2 will assist in their installation.

The hatch for Dragon was opened less than two hours after docking, following the completion of standard air and pressure leaks. Flight Engineers Frank Rubio, Stephen Bowen, and Woody Hoburg, all from NASA, and Sultan Alneyadi from UAE entered to begin offloading some of the more than 7,000 pounds of science experiments, station hardware, and crew supplies packed inside.

At the same time, controllers at ground level manoeuvred the Canadarm2 to extract the roll-out solar arrays from Dragon’s unpressurized trunk. Once the arrays have been remotely stowed, they will be temporarily rested on a pallet attached to the station’s starboard-side truss structure. They will then be prepared for installation and activation during a spacewalk on Friday.

Spacewalkers Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg will install the station’s fifth set of roll-out solar panels. Wednesday saw the spacewalkers organise their tools and procedures for the subsequent seven-hour event, along with assistance from Rubio and Alneyadi, who will help from inside the ISS. The four will team up on Thursday for a final preparations day, which will include reviewing the spacewalk procedures, a course in robotics, and a conference with ground specialists.

The four astronauts taking part in Friday’s spacewalk also worked on other activities, such as maintaining lab operations and running science experiments. Bowen set up standard optometry equipment found in a doctor’s office on Earth and captured images of Hoburg’s eyes as part of a human research study. Rubio was busy unpacking Dragon whilst Alneyadi tested runs of an Astrobee robotic free-flying assistant.

The station’s other three cosmonauts, meanwhile, busied themselves with electronic maintenance, research, and cargo duties in the Roscosmos segment of the station. Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev practised robotic and spacecraft piloting techniques with a cap packed full of sensors, which monitored their brain activity on a computer. Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin tested power and data cables in the Zvezda service module before transferring cargo from the ISS Progress 84 space freighter.