NASA Astronauts Achieve Milestone with Longest Spacewalk in ISS History: Moghbeli and O’Hara Set New Record
NASA Astronauts Achieve Historic Milestone with Longest Spacewalk in ISS History
According to source, NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara successfully completed the longest spacewalk in the history of the International Space Station (ISS). During the 6-hour and 42-minute longest spacewalk, they performed station maintenance tasks, such as replacing a bearing to ensure proper rotation of the ISS’s solar arrays, but ran out of time to remove an electronics box from a communications antenna.
Moghbeli and O’Hara began their longest spacewalk by tackling their respective tasks, with Moghbeli working on removing a handling fixture to make way for an additional ISS roll-out solar array. This array will enhance the station’s power supply for supporting expanded commercial activities. O’Hara, on the other hand, worked on replacing a trundle bearing assembly on a solar alpha rotary joint, facing some delays during the process.
Despite the challenges, the astronauts continued their maintenance duties during the longest spacewalk, including straightening out an ethernet cable and lubricating the race ring before installing the spare trundle bearing. Their work was completed with the preparation of an electronics box called the Radio Frequency Group (RFG) for future removal.
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NASA Astronauts Make History with Longest All-Female Spacewalk in Expedition 70
This longest spacewalk marked a significant moment, as Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara became the second pair of women to conduct an all-female extravehicular activity. Previous all-female spacewalks were performed by NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir in October 2019 and January 2020.
The longest spacewalk was part of Expedition 70 and represented the 269th EVA in support of the assembly, maintenance, and upgrade of the International Space Station, making it the 12th ISS spacewalk of the year and the second during this expedition.
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