Astronaut duo to exit space station to perform six-hour spacewalk next week

Two Expedition 70 crew members aboard the International Space Station will exit the orbital lab next week for a six-hour spacewalk to collect microbe samples and service a variety of hardware.

NASA Flight Engineer Loral O’Hara and space station Commander Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency (ESA) will exit the space station on October 12 for the planned excursion. The samples collected by the spacewalking duo will be processed by scientists to determine the types of microbes that may survive in the vacuum of space.

A second spacewalk is also scheduled for October 20 when O’Hara will exit the space station with astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA. The astronaut duo will spend about six-and-a-half hours in the vacuum of space removing and replacing faulty radio communications gear and installing new solar array hardware.

Today at 1pm ET, NASA managers will discuss two upcoming spacewalks on https://t.co/d9dym32zUo. ✨Spacewalk 89 on Oct. 12: @lunarloral and @esa's @Astro_Andreas will collect external microbe samples for analysis.✨Spacewalk 90 on Oct. 20: @lunarloral and @AstroJaws will… pic.twitter.com/RsQRS71lCF

— NASA Astronauts (@NASA_Astronauts) October 6, 2023

On Friday, the four astronauts called down to specialists on the ground and reviewed the upcoming spacewalk's procedures. The quartet also studied the robotics activities necessary to support the upcoming microbe-sampling spacewalk.