Build It. Test It. Then, Fly It.
Build it. Test it. Then, Fly it.
Hundreds of pieces of rockets, rocket engines, boosters, space capsules, launch structures and more have been built, tested and prepared to take us on our Journey to Mars. Across the country, America’s space program is hard at work to launch the Orion space capsule on its first uncrewed flight atop the powerful Space Launch System in 2018.
But enough of the artist concepts, let’s take a look at the real components being made across the country to prepare for this milestone:
Orion Spacecraft
From testing individual bracket strength to space flight tests, the Orion team is testing every component and subsystem of the spacecraft to ensure crew safety, operational reliability and backup systems are built into the spacecraft from the ground up. To date, hundreds of tests have been conducted across the program to verify and validate that Orion’s design, manufacturing and systems integration meet the rigorous requirements for safe human space exploration.
Orion engineers have subjected the spacecraft to deafening sound blasts, Earthquake-like vibrations and hurricane-force winds in preparation for Orion’s next flight. Large structures such as Orion’s crew and service modules were tested at Lockheed Martin’s Waterton Facility in Littleton, Colorado, and our Glenn Research Center’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. Motor and engine tests have been conducted at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility in Sacramento, California, and Orbital ATK’s facilities in Promontory, Utah, and Elkton, Maryland.
Water impact testing of Orion’s landing capabilities were conducted at our Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and the capsule’s massive parachute system has been tested in various landing scenarios at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Final assembly, integration and pre-flight testing will take place at our Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Space Launch System
Towering more than 320 feet, the Space Launch System will be the world’s most powerful rocket. Consisting of a core stage and two boosters, RS-25 engines, and the software to power it all, the initial configuration will provide 15 percent more thrust at launch than the Saturn V rocket and carry more than three times the mass of the Space Shuttle. When complete, we’ll be ready to fire up the largest and most powerful rocket ever built on it’s inaugural launch.
At our Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, a talented crew of humans with the latest in machinery is building SLS’s core stage. The core stage is the structural backbone of SLS that stores cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that feed the vehicle’s four RS-25 engines.
For two monumental minutes in June, the SLS solid rocket boosters fired up in an amazing display of power as engineers verified their designs in the last full-scale test before SLS’s first flight. The smoke and fire may last only two minutes, but engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Orbital ATK in Promontory, Utah, prepared weeks — even months — in advance for that test.
Launch Site
At our Kennedy Space Center in Florida, teams are hard at work transforming the historic Vehicle Assembly Building for the launches of tomorrow. Like a stairway to the heavens, these upgrades include the building and installation of platforms to access the new Space Launch System rocket.
Before SLS roars into deep space from Launch Pad 39B, our Ground Systems program continues making significant upgrades and modifications to the historic launch pad to accommodate the new rocket’s shape and size.
To make room for this new generation of rockets, workers took down the gantry that stood in support of the Space Shuttle program for 30 years and replaced it with, well, not much really. But that was the idea. Whenever SLS heads out to the pad in the future, it's going to bring its support structure with it. With that in mind, Pad 39B will provide all the fluids, electrical, and communications services to the launch platform.
All of this work is essential to get SLS flight ready before it’s maiden voyage and is an important step on our Journey to Mars.
Next Steps
The work happening across the country is preparing us for the first flight of SLS and Orion in 2018. That first, uncrewed test flight is critical to paving the way for future flights that will carry astronauts to deep space, including on a journey to Mars.
Ultimately, the SLS maiden flight will help us prepare for future human missions. During this flight, currently designated Exploration Mission-1, the spacecraft will travel thousands of miles beyond the moon over the course of about a three-week mission.
It will launch on the most powerful rocket in the world and fly farther than any spacecraft built for humans has ever flown. Orion will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
More Posts from Nasa and Others
Photographing Planets with the Roman Space Telescope
Nearly 100 years ago, astronomer Bernard Lyot invented the coronagraph – a device that made it possible to recreate a total solar eclipse by blocking the Sun’s light. That helped scientists study the Sun’s corona, which is the outermost part of our star’s atmosphere that’s usually hidden by bright light from its surface.
Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, now under construction, will test out a much more advanced version of the same thing. Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument will use special masks to block the glare from host stars but allow the light from dimmer, orbiting planets to filter through. It will also have self-flexing mirrors that will measure and subtract starlight automatically.
This glare-blocking prowess is important because planets can be billions of times dimmer than their host stars! Roman’s high-tech shades will help us take pictures of planets we wouldn’t be able to photograph using any other current telescopes.
Other observatories mainly use this planet-hunting method, called direct imaging, from the ground to photograph huge, bright planets called “super-Jupiters” in infrared light. These worlds can be dozens of times more massive than Jupiter, and they’re so young that they glow brightly thanks to heat left over from their formation. That glow makes them detectable in infrared light.
Roman will take advanced planet-imaging tech to space to get even higher-quality pictures. And while it’s known for being an infrared telescope, Roman will actually photograph planets in visible light, like our eyes can see. That means it will be able to see smaller, older, colder worlds orbiting close to their host stars. Roman could even snap the first-ever image of a planet like Jupiter orbiting a star like our Sun.
Astronomers would ultimately like to take pictures of planets like Earth as part of the search for potentially habitable worlds. Roman’s direct imaging efforts will move us a giant leap in that direction!
And direct imaging is just one component of Roman’s planet-hunting plans. The mission will also use a light-bending method called microlensing to find other worlds, including rogue planets that wander the galaxy untethered to any stars. Scientists also expect Roman to discover 100,000 planets as they cross in front of their host stars!
Find out more about the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Twitter and Facebook, and about the person from which the mission draws its name.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Keeping an Eye on Hurricane Florence
What do hurricanes look like from space? It depends on how you look! We have satellites, cameras and instruments all working together to give us the big picture of storms like Florence.
As the International Space Station passed over Hurricane Florence, astronauts and cameras on board got a look down into the hurricane’s eye.
Our Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission sees storms all around the planet by measuring rainfall. These measurements come from a constellation of satellites working together, including some from our partner organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
On Sept. 7, our GPM core observatory satellite flew over Florence, capturing a 3D image as the storm’s clouds started to break apart before reforming.
Other NOAA satellites, like GOES, gather high-resolution, detailed views of hurricanes, letting us peek into the eye of the storm.
Zooming out a bit, the Suomi-NPP satellite helps us track Hurricane Florence, and the following tropical storms, as they move closer to landfall or dissipate over the ocean.
From farther away (a million miles from Earth!), the EPIC instrument on NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite captured images of all three of these storms as they moved closer to North America.
We use our space-based and airborne instruments to provide innovative data on hurricanes to advance scientists’ understanding of these storms. You can follow our latest views of Hurricane Florence here and get the latest forecast from NOAA’s National Hurricane Center here.
One Year Into Our Planet-Hunting TESS Mission
Our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), launched last year on April 18, is completing a year in space, surveying the skies to find the closest, most exciting planets outside our solar system for further study. Worlds that TESS is hunting for include super-Earths, rocky planets, gas giants, and maybe even some Earth-sized planets — and much, much more! TESS is scanning the whole sky one section at a time, monitoring the brightness of stars for periodic dips caused by planets transiting (that is, passing in front of) those stars. So far, TESS has found 548 candidates and 10 confirmed exoplanets.
Since its launch, TESS has orbited Earth a total of 28 times. TESS has a unique elliptical orbit that circuits around Earth twice every time the Moon orbits. This allows TESS’s cameras to monitor each patch of sky continuously for nearly a month at a time. To get into this special orbit, TESS made a series of loops culminating in a lunar gravitational assist, which gave it the final push it needed.
Did you know that TESS has some serious mileage? The spacecraft has traveled about 20 million miles so far, which works out to an average of about 2,200 miles per hour. That’s faster than any roadrunner we’ve ever seen! This would be four times faster than an average jet. You’d get to your destination in no time!
TESS downloads data during its closest approach to Earth about every two weeks. So far, it has returned 12,000 gigabytes of data. That’s as if you streamed about 3,000 movies on Netflix. Get the popcorn ready! If you total all the pixels from every image taken using all four of the TESS cameras — which is about 600 full-frame images per orbit, you’d get about 805 billion pixels. This is like half a million iPhone screens put together!
When the Kepler Space Telescope reached the end of its mission, it passed the planet-finding torch to TESS. Where Kepler's view was deep — looking for planets as far away as 3,000 light-years — TESS's view is wide, surveying nearly the entire sky over two years. Each sector TESS views is 20 times larger than Kepler's field of view.
TESS will continue to survey the sky and is expected to find about 20,000 exoplanets in the two years it'll take to complete a scan of nearly the entire sky. Before TESS, several thousand candidate exoplanets were found, and more than 3,000 of these were confirmed. Some of these exoplanets are expected to range from small, rocky worlds to giant planets, showcasing the diversity of planets in the galaxy.
The TESS mission is led by MIT and came together with the help of many different partners. You can keep up with the latest from the TESS mission by following mission updates and keep track of the number of candidates and confirmed exoplanets.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
What’s Up for November 2016
What’s Up for November: Venus at sunset, Jupiter at dawn, your last evening glimpse of Saturn until spring, and more meteors!
Through November 3, catch glimpses of a gibbous Venus, a crescent moon and ringed Saturn in the southwest sky just after sunset.
Wake up before sunrise every day this month to see Jupiter just above Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, shining in the east-southeast sky.
Just before dawn on November 23-24, see the waning crescent moon just above Jupiter.
November is a great time to see the constellation Ceres as it glides past Cetus, the Whale and you will be able to see the dwarf planet move relative to the background stars, but you’ll need a telescope for this one.
This month, just like last month, there will be three meteor showers--the Northern Tuarids, the Leonids and the November Orionids.
Watch the full November “What’s Up" video for more:
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
9 Ocean Facts You Likely Don’t Know, but Should
Earth is a place dominated by water, mainly oceans. It’s also a place our researchers study to understand life. Trillions of gallons of water flow freely across the surface of our blue-green planet. Ocean’s vibrant ecosystems impact our lives in many ways.
In celebration of World Oceans Day, here are a few things you might not know about these complex waterways.
1. Why is the ocean blue?
The way light is absorbed and scattered throughout the ocean determines which colors it takes on. Red, orange, yellow,and green light are absorbed quickly beneath the surface, leaving blue light to be scattered and reflected back. This causes us to see various blue and violet hues.
2. Want a good fishing spot?
Follow the phytoplankton! These small plant-like organisms are the beginning of the food web for most of the ocean. As phytoplankton grow and multiply, they are eaten by zooplankton, small fish and other animals. Larger animals then eat the smaller ones. The fishing industry identifies good spots by using ocean color images to locate areas rich in phytoplankton. Phytoplankton, as revealed by ocean color, frequently show scientists where ocean currents provide nutrients for plant growth.
3. The ocean is many colors.
When we look at the ocean from space, we see many different shades of blue. Using instruments that are more sensitive than the human eye, we can measure carefully the fantastic array of colors of the ocean. Different colors may reveal the presence and amount of phytoplankton, sediments and dissolved organic matter.
4. The ocean can be a dark place.
About 70 percent of the planet is ocean, with an average depth of more than 12,400 feet. Given that light doesn’t penetrate much deeper than 330 feet below the water’s surface (in the clearest water), most of our planet is in a perpetual state of darkness. Although dark, this part of the ocean still supports many forms of life, some of which are fed by sinking phytoplankton.
5. We study all aspects of ocean life.
Instruments on satellites in space, hundreds of kilometers above us, can measure many things about the sea: surface winds, sea surface temperature, water color, wave height, and height of the ocean surface.
6. In a gallon of average sea water, there is about 1/2 cup of salt.
The amount of salt varies depending on location. The Atlantic Ocean is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, for instance. Most of the salt in the ocean is the same kind of salt we put on our food: sodium chloride.
7. A single drop of sea water is teeming with life.
It will most likely have millions (yes, millions!) of bacteria and viruses, thousands of phytoplankton cells, and even some fish eggs, baby crabs, and small worms.
8. Where does Earth store freshwater?
Just 3.5 percent of Earth’s water is fresh—that is, with few salts in it. You can find Earth’s freshwater in our lakes, rivers, and streams, but don’t forget groundwater and glaciers. Over 68 percent of Earth’s freshwater is locked up in ice and glaciers. And another 30 percent is in groundwater.
9. Phytoplankton are the “lungs of the ocean”.
Just like forests are considered the “lungs of the earth”, phytoplankton is known for providing the same service in the ocean! They consume carbon dioxide, dissolved in the sunlit portion of the ocean, and produce about half of the world’s oxygen.
Want to learn more about how we study the ocean? Follow @NASAEarth on twitter.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
Could Planets Like Those Imagined in Star Wars Be Real??
Look at what we’ve found so far.
Is your favorite Star Wars planet a desert world or an ice planet or a jungle moon?
It’s possible that your favorite planet exists right here in our galaxy. Astronomers have found over 3,400 planets around other stars, called “exoplanets.”
Some of these alien worlds could be very similar to arid Tatooine, watery Scarif and even frozen Hoth, according to NASA scientists.
Find out if your planet exists in a galaxy far, far away or all around you.
Planets With Two Suns
Were you going to the Tosche station to pick up some power converters? Hold on a minute and learn about Kepler-16b, 200 light-years from Earth. It’s the first honest-to-goodness planet ever found where you could watch two suns set like Luke. George Lucas himself even blessed its nickname ‘Tatooine.’ It’s not a perfect comparison: Kepler-16b is a cold gas giant roughly the size of Saturn. But don’t worry, kid.
The best part is that Tatooine aka Kepler-16b was just the first. It has family. A LOT of family. Half the stars in our galaxy are pairs, rather than single stars like our sun. If every star has at least one planet, that’s billions of worlds with two suns. Billions! Maybe waiting for life to be found on them.
Desert Worlds
If you’re like Finn and want to know why everyone wants to go back to Jakku desert planets, get this: Star Wars may be reflecting the real universe. Desert worlds are not only a very real possibility, but we think they are probably very common. They can be hot, like the fictional Tatooine and Jakku, or cold, like Jedha in “Rogue One” or our real planet Mars.
Perhaps it’s not so weird that both Luke and Rey grew up on planets that look suspiciously like each other. If you’re scouring the universe for a place to settle, you have a good chance of finding a desert planet.
Ice Planets
There is a Hoth in our galaxy! Though not the same Hoth from “The Empire Strikes Back” (no invading Imperials, for one). The icy super-Earth reminded scientists so much of the frozen Rebel base they nicknamed it “Hoth.” The planet’s real name is OGLE 2005-BLG-390L.
Our galaxy’s Hoth is too cold to support life as we know it. But life may evolve under the ice of a different world, or a moon in our solar system.
We’re currently designing a mission to look for life under the crust of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. We’re pretty sure ity won’t look like tauntauns, if it exists.
Forest worlds
Both the forest moon of Endor and Takodana, the home of Han Solo’s favorite cantina in “Force Awakens,” are green like our home planet. But astrobiologists think that plant life on other worlds could be red, black, or even rainbow-colored!
In August 2016, astronomers from the European Southern Observatory announced the discovery of Proxima Centauri b, a planet only four light-years away from Earth, which orbits a tiny red star.
The light from a red star, also known as an M dwarf, is dim and mostly in the infrared spectrum (as opposed to the visible spectrum we see with our sun). And that could mean plants with wildly different colors than what we’re used to seeing on Earth. Or, animals that see in the near-infrared.
And Beyond
The next few years will see the launch of a new generation of spacecraft to search for planets around other stars. TESS and the James Webb Telescope will go into space in 2018, and WFIRST in the mid-2020s. That’s one step closer to finding life.
You don’t need to visit a galaxy far, far away to find wondrous worlds. Just visit this one ... there’s plenty to see.
Discover more about exoplanets here: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
Solar System: Things to Know This Week
Be a scientist for a day, solstice on the Red Planet, historic launches and more!
1. Scientist for a Day!
This year's Scientist for a Day essay contest was announced last week. Write an essay on one of the three images above. Essays are due in Feb. 2017. Students in grades 5-12 in U.S. schools, after-school and home-school programs, scout troops and museum programs are eligible to participate.
+ Learn more
2. Tuesday is Winter Solstice on Mars' Northern Hemisphere
Mars' orbit is much more eccentric than Earth's. The winters in the northern hemisphere are warm and short, as Mars is near perihelion—closer to the sun. This means that the winters in the southern hemisphere are long and cold.
+ Read Mars: The Other Terrestrial Planet
+ Seasons on Mars (Malin Space Science Systems)
3. Launch-iversaries!
We’re celebrating two launch anniversaries. Before Curiosity. Before Spirit and Opportunity, there was Pathfinder and the hardy Sojourner rover, launched on Dec. 4, 1996. Pathfinder was a demonstration of the technology necessary to deliver a lander and a free-ranging robotic rover to the surface of Mars in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The lander, formally named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station following its successful touchdown, and the rover, named Sojourner after American civil rights crusader Sojourner Truth, both outlived their design lives — the lander by nearly three times, and the rover by 12 times! We continued the tradition with Spirit and Opportunity. Now there is the Mars Science Laboratory (with the Curiosity rover in stowage), which was launched on Nov. 26, 2011. It landed successfully in Gale Crater at 1:31 am EDT on Aug. 6, 2012.
+ Go Back in Time
+ Video: Where Were You When Curiosity Landed on Mars?
4. Mars Ice Deposit Holds as Much Water as Lake Superior
Water ice makes up half or more of an underground layer in a large region of Mars, about halfway from the equator to the north pole. The amount of water in this deposit—assessed using a radar aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter—is about as much as in Lake Superior.
+ Read More
5. A Little Bit of History
Finally, it’s been seven years since Cassini caught one of its most stunning views of the plume on Saturn's moon Enceladus.
+ Read More
Discover the full list of 10 things to know about our solar system this week HERE.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
Meet the Four Artemis Astronauts Who Will Fly Around the Moon
Today, we revealed the four astronauts who will fly around the Moon during the Artemis II mission, scheduled to launch in 2024. Get to know them:
Christina Koch
Meet the first member of our Artemis II crew: mission specialist Christina Koch. Koch visited the International Space Station in 2019, where she participated in the first all-woman spacewalk with Jessica Meir. She began her NASA career as an electrical engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center.
Jeremy Hansen
Representing the Canadian Space Agency is Jeremy Hansen from London, Ontario. Col. Hansen was a fighter pilot with Canadian Armed Forces before joining the Canadian Space Agency, and currently works with NASA on astronaut training and mission operations. This will be Col. Hansen’s first mission in space.
Victor Glover
Victor Glover is our Artemis II pilot. Glover is part of our 2013 class of NASA astronauts and was the pilot for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission. He’s logged 3,000 flight hours in more than 40 different aircraft.
Reid Wiseman
...and rounding out our Artemis II crew: mission commander Reid Wiseman. Wiseman lived and worked aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer in 2014. He also commanded the undersea research mission NEEMO21, and most recently served as Chief of the NASA astronauts.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Countdown to Launch of Landsat 9
We’re launching Landsat 9 — the ninth in a series of satellite missions from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that have been collecting images of our planet for almost 50 years. Follow along as we count down to launch!
A normal launch countdown starts at 10, but for Landsat 9, we’re jumping in with L-9!
There are 9 million images in the USGS/NASA Landsat archive! They’re all available for free, for use by scientists, data managers, and anyone else who’s interested. You can even download them!
Landsat 9 won’t be orbiting alone. Working together, Landsat 9 and Landsat 8 will completely image Earth every 8 days! This helps us track changes on the planet’s surface as they happen in near-real-time.
Landsat sees all 7 continents! From Antarctic ice to growing cities to changing forests, Landsat measures land — and coastal regions — all around the globe.
Working in space is really hard. Landsat 6 never made it to orbit, an important reminder that failures can be opportunities to learn and grow. Shortly after the unsuccessful launch, engineers got to work on Landsat 7, which is still collecting data today — 22 years later.
We have 5 decades of Landsat observations, the longest continuous record of Earth’s land surfaces in existence! While building the original Landsat in the 1970s, it would have been hard to imagine that this mission would still be providing crucial data about our planet today.
For each color band collected, Landsat 9 will see 4 times the shades of light as the previous Landsat mission! With more than 16,000 different intensities detected, Landsat 9 will be able to see crucial details on our planet’s surface.
Our eyes detect 3 colors of light: red, green, and blue — and Landsat does too! But Landsat 9 also detects wavelengths that can be combined to measure things our eyes can’t, like crop stress, coral reef health, fires, and more.
There are 2 instruments on Landsat 9! The Operational Land Imager 2 collects light, and works kind of like our eyes — or cameras — to make data-rich images. The Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 measures temperature, helping monitor plant health, fires, and more.
The Landsat program is the result of 1 amazing partnership! For more than 50 years, we’ve worked with the U.S. Geological Survey to design, build, launch, and manage Landsat satellites.
Two agencies working together makes for the longest continuous record of Earth’s surfaces. Now, let’s launch this satellite!
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Spacewalk Recap Told in GIFs
Friday, Oct. 20, NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik and Joe Acaba ventured outside the International Space Station for a 6 hour and 49 minute spacewalk. Just like you make improvements to your home on Earth, astronauts living in space periodically go outside the space station to make updates on their orbiting home.
During this spacewalk, they did a lot! Here’s a recap of their day told in GIFs…
All spacewalks begin inside the space station. Astronauts Paolo Nespoli and Mark Vande Hei helped each spacewalker put on their suit, known as an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU).
They then enter an airlock and regulate the pressure so that they can enter the vacuum of space safely. If they did not regulate the pressure safely, the astronauts could experience something referred to as “the bends” – similar to scuba divers.
Once the two astronauts exited the airlock and were outside the space station, they went to their respective work stations.
Bresnik replaced a failed fuse on the end of the Dextre robotic arm extension, which helps capture visiting vehicles.
During that time, Acaba set up a portable foot restraint to help him get in the right position to install a new camera.
While he was getting set up, he realized that there was unexpected wearing on one of his safety tethers. Astronauts have multiple safety mechanisms for spacewalking, including a “jet pack” on their spacesuit. That way, in the unlikely instance they become untethered from the station, the are able to propel back to safety.
Bresnik was a great teammate and brought Acaba a spare safety tether to use.
Once Acaba secured himself in the foot restraint that was attached to the end of the station’s robotic arm, he was maneuvered into place to install a new HD camera. Who was moving the arm? Astronauts inside the station were carefully moving it into place!
And, ta da! Below you can see one of the first views from the new enhanced HD camera…(sorry, not a GIF).
After Acaba installed the new HD camera, he repaired the camera system on the end of the robotic arm’s hand. This ensures that the hand can see the vehicles that it’s capturing.
Bresnik, completed all of his planned tasks and moved on to a few “get ahead” tasks. He first started removing extra thermal insulation straps around some spare pumps. This will allow easier access to these spare parts if and when they’re needed in the future.
He then worked to install a new handle on the outside of space station. That’s a space drill in the above GIF.
After Acaba finished working on the robotic arm’s camera, he began greasing bearings on the new latching end effector (the arm’s “hand”), which was just installed on Oct. 5.
The duo completed all planned spacewalk tasks, cleaned up their work stations and headed back to the station’s airlock.
Once safely inside the airlock and pressure was restored to the proper levels, the duo was greeted by the crew onboard.
They took images of their spacesuits to document any possible tears, rips or stains, and took them off.
Coverage ended at 2:36 p.m. EDT after 6 hours and 49 minutes. We hope the pair was able to grab some dinner and take a break!
You can watch the entire spacewalk HERE, or follow @Space_Station on Twitter and Instagram for regular updates on the orbiting laboratory.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
-
struckbear637 liked this · 10 months ago -
eros-military-bujutsu reblogged this · 1 year ago -
eros-military-bujutsu liked this · 1 year ago
-
feeds-fort2 liked this · 1 year ago -
anvanmaesdal liked this · 1 year ago -
jbaker193 liked this · 4 years ago -
wakayume liked this · 4 years ago -
thepiratebeowolf liked this · 4 years ago
Explore the universe and discover our home planet with the official NASA Tumblr account
1K posts