Extravehicular Activity

Photo: NASA“It may have been one small step for Neil,” McCandless quipped in reference to Armstrong’s famous words, “but it’s a heck of a big leap for me.” As The New York Times reported at the time, “Free of any lifeline and propelled into the dark void by tiny jets, they became, in effect, the first human satellites.”The MMUs were powered by two dozen gaseous nitrogen thrusters stored in tanks on the astronaut’s backpack, enabling free movement in space. Control was achieved through hand controllers, allowing…

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft captured this view of Earth—appearing as a speck of light—on February 14, 1980, at a distance of roughly 3.2 billion miles (6 billion km) from the Sun—beyond the orbit of Neptune. The words of Carl Sagan, as featured in his 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of a Human Future in Space, best describes the significance of this ultra-famous image:... Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human…

Photo: NASAEach of the three Skylab missions set new space duration records, with the Skylab 2 mission lasting for 28 days, Skylab 3 for 59 days, and the third and final mission, Skylab 4, lasting for 84 days—a record that stood for 20 years and was finally broken during the Shuttle-Mir program. Skylab 4 launched on November 15, 1973 and ended on February 8, 1974. Planners initially overextended the Skylab 4 astronauts, leading to “frustrations as the astronauts struggled to keep up with the blistering pace of the…

Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin during a spacewalk on May 3, 2023.Image: NASATwo cosmonauts are about to go on a second spacewalk in a little over a week to configure a radiator on the International Space Station (ISS) that helps them stay cool on board the orbital lab.Three Astronauts May Be Stranded on the ISS After Disturbing Soyuz Coolant LeakRussian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin are scheduled to exit the space station at 11:55 a.m. ET on Friday. The spacewalk will be broadcast live on…

The Nauka science module and Soyuz MS-23 crew ship pictured above north Africa.Photo: NASARussian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin are about to step outside the International Space Station (ISS) for the pair’s second extravehicular activity this year.Three Astronauts May Be Stranded on the ISS After Disturbing Soyuz Coolant LeakThe spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 4:05 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to NASA. The action will be broadcast live on NASA TV, as well as the space agency’s website. You can also…

Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi inside the Kibo laboratory module during his first week aboard the International Space Station.Photo: NASATwo astronauts are gearing up for a nearly seven-hour-long spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Friday, with one of them set to make history as the first Arab astronaut to take on the extravehicular activity. Three Astronauts May Be Stranded on the ISS After Disturbing Soyuz Coolant LeakNASA astronaut Stephen Bowen and United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut…

Photo: Axiom SpaceThe most noticeable thing about the Moon suit shown yesterday was its dark gray color highlighted by streaks of orange and blue. The suit that astronauts will wear during space missions won’t have this fabric colorand will instead be all white. “Since a spacesuit worn on the Moon must be white to reflect heat and protect astronauts from extreme high temperatures, a cover layer is currently being used for display purposes only to conceal the suit’s proprietary design,” according to Axiom Space. As Mark…

Dubbed AxEMU, the next generation suit is designed to be safe, flexible, and capable of withstanding the extreme temperatures experienced at the lunar south pole, where two NASA astronauts are expected to land later this decade.The first prototype of the next generation spacesuit was revealed during a Moon to Mars event at NASA’s Space Center Houston on Wednesday. NASA partnered with Axiom Space to develop the first moonwalking spacesuits since Apollo, which will be worn by astronauts on the lunar surface as part of the…

Conceptual images of the Artemis 3 moonwalk. Could this be what the new Moon suits look like? We’ll find out next week. Image: NASAIt’s been more than 50 years since astronauts first left their dusty footprints on the lunar surface, but humanity is finally going back to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program. A lot has changed since the days of Apollo, which will likely be reflected in the new suits donned by those making the trip to the Moon this time around.In order to prepare for the upcoming moonwalks, NASA has…

NASA Astronaut Frank Rubio during a spacewalk outside the ISS on November 15.Photo: NASAAstronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) are overdue for some new threads, but NASA is hoping to upgrade its spacesuits soon. The space agency awarded Collins Aerospace a $97.2 million contract to develop a spacewalking system to use outside the space station, NASA announced on Thursday.The company is tasked with designing and developing a new generation spacesuit and demonstrating the use of the suit in a simulated…