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[Update]Â International Space Station astronauts will be working to repair the faulty coolant system with a series of spacewalks that begin early Saturday morning. You can watch live right here with coverage starting on NASA TV at 6:15AM EST with the spacewalk beginning at 7:10AM.
NASA has canceled the launch of Orbital Sciences’ rocket Antares to the International Space Station so astronauts can focus on spacewalks to fix a problem with the station’s main cooling system. The cooling malfunction has caused a lot of the station’s electronics to be powered down since last week, and it looks like spacewalks are the only solution.
NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins will undertake three, six and a half-hour space walks on December 21, 23, and 25 to retrieve a replacement valve for the station’s main coolant loop from an external cargo unit and replace the broken one with it.
What are you doing with your Christmas day? Bet it’s not as cool as fixing things in space. (Astronauts make us feel bad about ourselves.)
Orbital Sciences will have to wait to send its cargo shipment to the ISS, since the launch of the Antares has been delayed at least until mid-January. You can watch NASA TV’s live coverage of the spacewalks, which begins at 6:15 am EST, but you can probably tune in a little later, since they’ll be going on for over six hours.
For more info on how exactly the spacewalks will go down, you can also watch NASA’s briefing on the repairs today at 3PM EST on NASA TV.
(via NASA on Twitter, image via Paul Graham Raven)
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