Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins to perform spacewalk this month; NASA announces live coverage!

Image courtesy: NASA (For representational purposes only)

New Delhi: Spacewalks are something all space enthusiasts look forward to in earnest, especially when NASA airs them live.

Well, there's good news for all you space freaks out there! NASA has announced live coverage of a spacewalk performed by Expedition 48 commander Jeff Williams and NASA Flight Engineer Kate Rubins aboard the International Space Station (ISS), which will be aired on NASA TV.

The spacewalk live coverage will take place on August 19th at 6:30 am EDT, wherein the two NASA astronauts will install a new gateway for American commercial crew spacecraft at the ISS.

The international docking adapter (IDA) which the astronauts will be installing and connecting, was launched on a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft and arrived at the station July 20 and will be used for the future arrivals of Boeing and SpaceX commercial crew spacecraft.

This will be the fourth spacewalk in Williams’ career, the first for Rubins, and the 194th for the space station.

As per NASA, the two astronauts will venture outside the space station’s Quest airlock to install the first IDA onto Pressurized Mating Adapter-2, located on the forward end of the Harmony module. On Wednesday, Aug. 17, ground controllers will use the Canadarm2 robotic arm, and its attached “Dextre” Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, to extract the IDA from the trunk of Dragon, and position it just inches away from PMA-2. There will be no live coverage of the trunk removal and IDA positioning.

For more details on the spacewalk schedule, click here!