NASA astronauts successfully complete 209th spacewalk outside space station

Expedition 55 Flight Engineers Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel of NASA successfully completed the fourth spacewalk of the year outside the International Space Station on Thursday, March 29.

Expedition 55 Flight Engineers Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel of NASA successfully completed the fourth spacewalk of the year outside the International Space Station on Thursday, March 29.

The two astronauts began their spacewalk at 9:33 a.m. EDT, about an hour behind schedule, lasting 6 hours, 10 minutes.

The duo installed wireless communications equipment on the station’s Tranquility module to enhance payload data processing for the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) experiment being flown to the station on a future SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft. They replaced high-definition video cameras on the port truss of the station’s backbone and remove aging hoses from a cooling component on the station’s truss.
This happens to be the 209th spacewalk in support of International Space Station assembly, maintenance and upgrades. It was seventh spacewalk for Feustel and the third for Arnold.

The astronauts are recent additions to the crew of the orbiting space station, arriving on March 23 with Russian crewmate Oleg Artemyev aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.

Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 54 days and 10 hours working outside the station in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory.