NEW DELHI — Indian-origin
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams on Thursday stepped out of the International
Space Station (ISS) for a spacewalk along with colleague Nick Hague, the US
space agency said.
This is Williams' first spacewalk in 12 years, and the
eighth in her career, while it's Hague's fourth. The mission designated US
Spacewalk 91, is expected to last around six and a half hours.
Hague serves as spacewalk crew member 1 and is wearing a
suit with red stripes. Williams is serving as spacewalk crew member 2 and is
wearing an unmarked suit.
The astronaut-duo is currently working to perform
maintenance tasks and replace hardware, NASA said.
“NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Suni Williams, step outside
of the Space_Station to support station upgrades, including repairs to our
NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) X-ray telescope.
In a blog post, NASA informed that Williams and Hague will
work to replace a rate gyro assembly that helps provide orientation control for
the station and install patches to cover damaged areas of light filters for
NICER. They will also replace a reflector device used for navigational data on
one of the international docking adapters.
In addition, the pair will check access areas and connector
tools that will be used for future maintenance work on the Alpha Magnetic
Spectrometer.
NASA also informed a second spacewalk, scheduled to begin at
8:15 a.m. on January 23.
During the second mission, Wilmore and Williams will remove
a radio frequency group antenna assembly from the station’s truss, and collect
samples of surface material for analysis from the Destiny laboratory and the
Quest airlock to see whether microorganisms may exist on the exterior of the
orbital complex.
They will also prepare a spare elbow joint for the Canadarm2
robotic arm in the event it is needed for a replacement.
Meanwhile, NASA has yet again delayed the mission to return
Williams and Willmore to Earth, as the launch of SpaceX Crew 10 has been
delayed to late March 2025.
Williams and Willmore became the first to ride the
Starliner, developed by Boeing. What began as an eight-day sojourn on the
International Space Station (ISS) has extended to 10 months now in space for
the astronauts, while the faulty Starliner, declared unfit for human travel by
NASA, is back on Earth unharmed.
The astronauts were scheduled to return to Earth onboard a
SpaceX Dragon capsule in February 2025.
However, NASA opted to delay Crew 10 to allow additional
preparation time for the new SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, to enhance the safety of
the astronauts.
Recently, Williams noted that she “wants to go home because
we left our families a little while ago, but we have a lot to do while we’re up
here”.
