Space Station Astronauts Rehearse Mission’s First Spacewalk

Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov trains for one of two spacewalks planned during his mission aboard the ISS. Here he dons a U.S.-built spacesuit, but will wear a Russian-built Orlan unit during an upcoming spacewalk on June 1, 2006. CREDIT: NASA/JSC.

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are going through the motions of a spacewalk today in preparations for the real thing later this week.

ISS Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineer Jeffrey Williams donned their Russian-built Orlan spacesuits Tuesday for a dress rehearsal of the nearly six-hour June 1 excursion to maintain their orbital spacecraft.

"The crew seems very comfortable and ready to go do the spacewalk," said Holly Ridings, NASA's lead flight director for the upcoming extravehicular activity (EVA), during a Tuesday press briefing at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

While NASA ISS flight controllers detailed the Expedition 13 crew's coming spacewalk, the astronauts themselves conducted final checks on the systems and mobility of their Orlan spacesuits, NASA officials said.

Vinogradov and Williams are expected to exit the space station's Russian-built Pirs docking compartment at 6:40 p.m. EDT (2240 GMT) for a five-hour and 40-minute spacewalk to gather experiments and maintain the ISS. The spacewalk will mark the sixth career EVA for Vinogradov - who staged five others from Russia's Mir space station - and the second for Williams.

"The equipment that we have is very good and the training that we've been provided by the team on the ground is very good," Williams told reporters last week. "We will be very prepared when the time comes to go out the door."

Two key tasks

Among the two vital tasks for Thursday's spacewalk is the planned installation of a new vent for the space station's primary oxygen generator - known as Elektron - to dump waste hydrogen into space.

The Elektron device, which separates water into much needed oxygen and waste hydrogen, has endured months of finicky activity largely due to a leak last year that contaminated its original vent valve and rendered it unusable, said Kirk Shireman, NASA's ISS deputy program manager, during the press briefing.

Since then, the Elektron has shared a vent with another ISS system, shutting down as the vent's original user required and undergoing shaky restarts. Vinogradov is expected to install a new vent that would once again give the Elektron a dedicated line to dump excess hydrogen.

"After this EVA, you'll see very few blips in this Elektron system," Shireman said.

Vinogradov and Williams will also replace a faulty camera aboard the Mobile Base Transporter, which slides the space station's robotic arm and other large ISS components along rails that run the length of the orbital laboratory's main truss. While the camera itself isn't required for future ISS construction, the failure of another camera could cause serious delay, NASA officials said.

"If we didn't do this [camera replacement] and had an additional failure, we might conceivably have to stop station assembly for awhile," Shireman said.

The next ISS construction mission - STS-115 slated to launch aboard the Atlantis shuttle in late August - will deliver a new solar array and truss to the ISS, he added.

The Expedition 13 crew will also retrieve a series of experiments attached to the ISS exterior, including one that studies the effects of Russian thrusters on the station's hull and a Biorisk canister to determine how the space environment affects microorganisms. Vinogradov is due to photograph one antenna and remove slack from the cable of another at the aft end of the station's Zvezda module.

Orbital golf rescheduled

Missing among the Expedition 13 crew's task roster is a golf shot for which Vinogradov had trained to perform as part of a commercial stunt for the Canadian golf equipment firm Element 21.

Scheduled under an agreement between Toronto-based Element 21 and Russia's Federal Space Agency, the golf shot called for Vinogradov to smack a radio transmitter-equipped golf ball into orbit with a gold-plated six iron (both made by Canadian golfing firm). But the Canadian sporting good firm agreed to put off the event until November when Russian ISS officials required more work time for its spacewalks, company officials said.

"We figured that it was important for them and we could delay our space shot," Element 21's president and CEO Nataliya Hearn told SPACE.com, adding that Russian flight controllers said they needed more time to perform ISS repairs. "We're fairly happy, because it's obvious that the space shot is going ahead."

The golf shot is now slated for a Russian spacewalk during the next ISS mission - Expedition 14 - with cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin wielding the club.

NASA officials said the final safety review documentation is still being finalized to ensure that the golf stunt will not pose a debris hazard for the ISS or space shuttles.

Hearn said that she hopes that the golf shot - video of which will be used in a future Element 21 commercial - could eventually lead to an orbital driving range of sorts for astronauts, or even space tourists, in coming years.

"The women would be aiming for Venus and the men will be aiming for Mars," Hearn said.

NASA will provide live coverage of the Expedition 13 crew's spacewalk on NASA TV beginning at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT) on June 1. You are invited to follow the crew's progress using SPACE.com's NASA TV feed by clicking here.

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