If you've got a case of the Mondays, NASA is here to help: the agency will be broadcasting live as two astronauts climb outside the International Space Station for a spacewalk today (April 8).
NASA astronaut Anne McClain and Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques are scheduled to switch their suits to battery power at 8:05 a.m. EDT (1205 GMT), kicking off a scheduled 6.5-hour spacewalk. The spacewalk will be broadcast live beginning at 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT); you can watch live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV, or directly through the space agency.
During the excursion, the duo will tackle an eclectic range of tasks, including troubleshooting some issues that arose during installations that took place during two spacewalks last month. Overall, the goal of the spacewalk is to equip Canadarm2, a robotically operated arm, with a redundant power source, just in case anything goes wrong.
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After spending a few days putting together my spacesuit and tools, today I tried them on. Like a dress rehearsal! // Après avoir passé quelques jours à assembler ma combinaison et mes outils, je les essaie aujourd’hui. Comme dans une répétition générale! pic.twitter.com/8kB5vitOgWApril 5, 2019
The excursion will be the 54th spacewalk at the ISS conducted by astronauts working through NASA. It will also mark the first spacewalk by a Canadian astronaut in 12 years.
Today's spacewalk will be the last in a series of three excursions conducted in March and April. NASA saves time by doing spacewalks in batches, hence the string of three spacewalks in just a few weeks. But once today's excursion is over, the astronauts living and working on the orbiting laboratory will need to switch their focus to dealing with the series of cargo vehicles arriving at the station.
Those arrivals began on April 4 with a Russian Progress capsule. That shipment will be followed by two additional cargo runs, one Cygnus capsule launched by Northrop Grumman, scheduled for April 17, and one Dragon capsule launched by SpaceX, scheduled for April 25.
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Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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