Two NASA astronauts conducted a spacewalk Wednesday outside the International Space Station (ISS) to complete an antenna assembly and communications terminal.
Flight Engineers Astronaut Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover are conducting the space walks, which will complete upgrades to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Columbus Module, among other tasks.
A posting to the ISS Twitter account explains the antenna rigging for the “Bartolomeo” science payloads platform outside the Columbus module and the communications links will allow high-bandwidth communication with European ground stations, as well as further research in Earth observation, robotics, material science and astrophysics.
The spacewalk was scheduled to last about six hours.
Wednesday’s spacewalk is the first in Glover’s career and the third for Hopkins. The two are scheduled to conduct another spacewalk next week. They arrived at the ISS in November aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft.