{"id":21206,"date":"2025-01-16T22:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T22:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/nasas-sunita-williams-makes-first-of-two-spacewalks\/"},"modified":"2025-01-16T22:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T22:50:10","slug":"nasas-sunita-williams-makes-first-of-two-spacewalks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/nasas-sunita-williams-makes-first-of-two-spacewalks\/","title":{"rendered":"Nasa’s Sunita Williams makes first of two spacewalks"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Watch: Astronaut stuck in space station ventures outside<\/figcaption><\/p>\n
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Nasa astronaut Suni Williams, one of two astronauts stuck on the International Space Station, ventured outside for a spacewalk on Thursday for the first time since arriving on board seven months ago.<\/p>\n

Ms Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore were due to return to Earth after a week-long mission in June 2024 but their return has been delayed because of a technical issue. <\/p>\n

They now won’t be back until late March or possibly April.<\/p>\n

Ms Williams – an experienced astronaut who has conducted many spacewalks during previous stays aboard the ISS – teamed up with astronaut Nick Hague on Thursday to perform maintenance on the craft. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Their tasks include repairing equipment that governs station orientation, patch light filters on the NICER X-ray telescope, and replacing a reflector device on an international docking adapter.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the pair will check access areas and connector tools that will be used for future maintenance work on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle physics experiment module mounted on the ISS.<\/p>\n

Ms Williams will conduct a second spacewalk on 23 January with Mr Wilmore.<\/p>\n

Together, they will remove a radio frequency group antenna assembly (a collection of components designed to transmit and receive radio waves) and collect surface samples for microorganism analysis.<\/p>\n

They will also prepare a backup elbow joint for the Canadarm2 robotic arm by positioning the joint in the optimal configuration for a quick replacement if needed.<\/p>\n

Each spacewalk is expected to last about six and a half hours.<\/p>\n

Nasa is providing live coverage of both spacewalks that can be viewed here<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Astronaut Sunita Williams will perform two spacewalks this month<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Nicole McElroy, a Flight Director at Nasa, said in a press briefing before the spacewalk that “The road to our preparations for all of these EVAs (extra-vehicular activity) has been going well. <\/p>\n

“The crew on board has been studying their procedures, getting familiar with all of the tasks, and are really excited and looking forward to going out the door.”<\/p>\n

Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore went on what was meant to be an eight day mission to the ISS aboard Boeing’s Starliner in June 2024.<\/p>\n

However, technical issues including helium leaks and thruster malfunctions meant that the Starliner was unsafe for their return.<\/p>\n

Nasa plans to bring them back to Earth in late March aboard a spaceship built by SpaceX, a rival company of Boeing.<\/p>\n

Despite these setbacks, the astronauts have continued their work aboard the ISS while awaiting a safe journey home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watch: Astronaut stuck in space station ventures outside Nasa astronaut Suni Williams, one of two astronauts stuck on the International Space Station, ventured outside for a spacewalk on Thursday for the first time since arriving on board seven months ago. Ms Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore were due to return to Earth after a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[7613,8035,8034,5151],"class_list":["post-21206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-nasas","tag-spacewalks","tag-sunita","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21208,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21206\/revisions\/21208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}