Not everyone gets to walk in space, 408 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. But, maybe they can at least get a glimpse of what it could be like in crisp footage from outside the International Space Station (ISS).
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been live-streaming its spacewalks outside the ISS for all to see
since 2017. The only problem is that the real-time footage — 4K or not — can be a bit unstable at times.
The ordinary viewer is left squinting as they try to guess what it is that they’re looking at on their screens, which can put a damper on the whole experience.
In order to try and fix the problem, NASA has uploaded an HD video with crystal clear footage of its astronauts on spacewalks over the past year. The video contains four spacewalks conducted between July 2020 and March 2021.
The spacewalks usually include maintenance work or upgrades of the ISS. Each spacewalk can last anywhere from five hours to eight, depending on the task at hand.
Two of the astronauts in the video — Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover seen in the first two minutes of the footage — are seen working to install a European science platform, Bartolemo, and complete a long-term battery upgrade.
They also vented early ammonia system jumper cables as well as relocated one of them and reconnected it to the current cooling system for more efficiency. Ammonia is part of the station’s cooling system.
Some of the other tasks on Hopkins and Glover’s docket included replacing a wireless antenna assembly on the first US-built module known as Unity, installing a stiffener on the airlock’s flexible thermal cover where astronauts come and go during spacewalks and routing cables to provide ethernet capabilities for two high-definition cameras outside the station.
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi are seen in the next one minute of the video, completing the installation of modification kits in preparation for upcoming solar array upgrades.
The last pair of astronauts are Robert Behnken and Chris Cassidy. On their spacewalk, Behnken and Cassidy began by installing a protective storage unit that includes two Robotic External Leak Locator (RELL) units the Canadian Space Agency’s Dextre robot can use to detect leaks of ammonia.
They then removed two lifting fixtures at the base of station solar arrays on the near port truss, or backbone, of the station. The two also routed ethernet cables and removed a lens filter cover from an external camera.
