Be prepared

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano performed his first spacewalk last week, and he will venture out into space again today. To ensure this sortie goes just as smoothly, Luca made a range of checks on his spacesuit yesterday. He will use the same suit today, identifiable in the TV coverage by its pristine white colour. His colleague Chris Cassidy will sport red stripes. 

In this photo, Luca is checking his camera – the camera he used last week to take superb photos of AMS-2 and his now-famous ‘selfie’. We’ll soon see what the camera captures this time!

Today’s spacewalk will begin (according to preliminary planning) at 12:15 GMT (14:10 CEST) and last for 6 hours and 15 minutes.

A variety of relatively small tasks is planned because Luca and Chris on their last sortie managed to carry out ‘get-ahead’ tasks that were originally intended for this one. 

If everything goes as well as last week, the astronauts will complete more get-ahead tasks to help future spacewalkers.

Luca’s excursion will be a little different this time. He will go outside first and he won’t ride on the robot Canadarm. He will be working with cables and connectors, mostly on the Russian side of the Station, and – time permitting – he will also take better photos of AMS-2. 

The next spacewalk from the International Space Station will be performed on 15 August by the Russian team: Fyodor Yurchikhin and Aleksandr Misurkin will don the Russian Orlan suits and continue the work begun by Luca and Chris.