https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Expedition 59 Flight Engineers Anne McClain of NASA and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency concluded their spacewalk at 2 p.m. EDT on Monday 8 April. During the six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, the two astronauts successfully established a redundant path of power to the Canadian-built robotic arm, known as Canadarm2, and installed cables to provide for more expansive wireless communications coverage outside the orbital complex, as well as for enhanced hardwired computer network capability. The duo also relocated an adapter plate from the first spacewalk in preparation for future battery upgrade operations.
This was the third spacewalk in just under a month on the space station. The first two spacewalks installed powerful lithium-ion batteries for one pair of the station’s solar arrays. On March 22, the first spacewalk was completed by McClain and fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague. On March 28, the second spacewalk was completed by Hague and NASA astronaut Christina Koch.
· March 22 was the first spacewalk for NASA astronauts Hague and McClain. McClain became the 13th female spacewalker in history.
· March 29 also was the first spacewalk for NASA astronaut Christina Koch, who became the 14th female to complete a spacewalk.
· Saint-Jacques became the first Canadian Expedition astronaut to walk in space and the fourth Canadian astronaut to spacewalk overall.
· Space station crew members have conducted 216 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory. Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 56 days 10 hours and 53 minutes working outside the station.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts
Learning about Space: Students from Curtin Primary School (and Preschools) have been asked to think of questions to ask an astronaut. On Wednesday the 22nd of May, 10 students will be chosen to ask the astronauts in space a question, via an ISS radio telephone.
Following the ISS information emailed to all staff and then included in the newsletter last week, I have already had some excited students (and parents) talk to me about the ISS link up at school on the evening of May 22.
Two thought provoking questions from year 2 students (to ask the astronauts) so far are –
How did the universe begin? What holds up the universe?
To better understand what an astronaut does in space and inspire curiosity, the preschools watched a 'virtual tour' of a space ship, then learnt about how astronauts eat and wash their hair.
The children's questions demonstrated deep thinking, curiosity and developing questioning skills. So far, we have asked: "How do you know it's lunch time when it's always dark?" "Do you feel hot or cold?" "What does space smell like?" "Is your food hot or cold?" "Is there a toilet on your rocket ship?".
Preschool space station construction: On Wednesday the students transformed a large 'box train' into a rocket! During this experience the Possums exhibited excellent cooperation and negotiation skills during the decorating and Building process. We are developing a 'space themed' dramatic play space in our classroom and look forward to adding more items next week.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts
Students preschool to year 6 are invited to submit their questions to me via email.
The deadline for student questions is 3pm this coming Friday (last day of term 1).
I will then submit 20 questions to the organisers of our telephone link up who will in turn send them to the astronauts on the ISS.
Email your questions to Deborah.fitzgerald@ed.act.edu.au
