It’s another Friday for you and I, so let’s kick back, relax, and think about all the cool stuff we’re going to do (or not do) over the next two days. Personally, I’ve got a whole lot of nothing on deck and I’m really excited about it.
The astronauts aboard the International Space Station don’t have it so easy, and rather than spending their Friday looking forward to the weekend, they’re floating around outside of their massive orbiting home and replacing components that keep their science instruments in tip-top shape. You can watch them carry out their high-flying maintenance live.
NASA continues its tradition of streaming its spacewalks today with astronauts Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and NASA’s own Android Morgan wired up for a day of work in space.
Parmitano is designated extravehicular crewmember 1 (EV 1), wearing the suit with red stripes, and with the helmet camera labeled #11. Morgan is designated extravehicular crew member 2 (EV 2), wearing the suit with no stripes, and with helmet camera #18.
Check it out:
The spacewalk began at around 7 a.m. EST and is expected to last six-and-a-half hours. That’s a whole lot of floating around in a bulky spacesuit, but the work the pair is performing is crucial. The duo are swapping out the cooling system of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, an instrument installed on the exterior of the space station that detects cosmic rays.
Live streams like this are pretty exciting to watch, even if the work being conducted seems slow and plodding. Along with visuals from cameras positioned around the space station as well as on the spacesuits of the spacewalkers themselves, we get a live audio feed of the communication between the astronauts and their support crews back on Earth.
If you’ve got nothing else to do on a dreary Friday (let’s be honest, you don’t), it’s well worth the price of admission, which is zero.
