Emirati astronauts train for spacewalk rescue scenarios ahead of Friday mission – News

He and a colleague spent Monday checking their spacesuits for leaks and verifying proper fit

Emirati astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi wore a pair of virtual reality goggles and trained for a variety of unlikely spacewalk rescue scenarios ahead of Friday’s scheduled spacewalk.

He and his flight engineer at NASA, Stephen Bowen, assisted by NASA flight engineer Woody Hoburg, checked their spacesuits on Monday for leaks, and a suitable verification is performed.

This was revealed by experts during NASA TV’s International Space Station (ISS) spacewalk preview press conference at the Johnson Space Center.

Hoburg and NASA flight engineer Frank Rubio will assist the astronauts in putting on and taking off their spacesuits and monitor their spacewalks throughout the day.

The agency said it would provide live coverage of the spacewalk from 3.45pm GST on Friday.

Scott Stover, chief EVA (extravehicular activity) flight director for the upcoming mission, said: “Our chief spacewalker is Steve Bowen. This will be his eighth EVA, so he’s very Experience. His seven previous EVAs have occurred on space shuttle missions from 2008 to 2011. We are delighted to have such an experienced astronaut as a spacewalker. Our second spacewalker is Sudan This is his first flight and will be his first spacewalk. We are very excited for Sultan and our Emirati friends to give them this opportunity to have a wonderful experience.”

He added: “Mobile in the car, flight engineer Woody Hoburg will help Steve and Sultan get dressed in the morning and undress them at the end of the day. Then Frank Rubio will be our M1 or our mobile service system Operator One. He controls the Canadarm robotic arm that moves Steve around.”

Elaborating on these missions, Stover said: “The ISS is upgrading its power channels with new solar arrays. Specifically, both channels 1A and 1B have retrofit kits or support structures installed for these new solar arrays. What we’re really trying to do on this EVA is prepare for the upcoming summer EVAs that are going to have those new solar panels. What we’re going to do specifically is lay out some power lines and then we’re going to sort out these modified structural Some insulation to make sure no exposed metal is showing or anything is in good configuration.Finally we’ll move some of the foot restraints that will be used on future spacewalks.

“The second major task is to bring the radio frequency group, or RFG, into the space station. The plan calls for us to bring it home for refurbishment, and the only way to do that is through the SpaceX cargo dragon. On that cargo dragon.”

Sandra Fletcher, US Spacewalk 86 chief officer, sheds light on the back-up team working hard behind the scenes, saying: “I also have a fantastic team supporting me. I do want to admit it’s a huge undertaking. A team effort. There was a large group of people going through the hardware owners, engineers and roboticists. Many people came together to get this EVA ready and I believe we were in good shape to execute it on Friday.”