Almost flawless.
French astronaut Thomas Pesquet returned safely to the interior of the International Space Station on Wednesday after his third spacewalk, which lasted more than seven hours but was troubled by several setbacks, failing to allow complete the mission set to the end.
He and his teammate, US astronaut Shane Kimbrough, will make a second outing on Sunday, to continue the installation of new solar panels, intended to increase the power generation capacity of the ISS.
This extra-vehicular outing (“EVA”), the first since their arrival at the Station at the end of April, was technically unprecedented.
“You did a fantastic job today,” Jenni Sidey, NASA official who was in constant contact with them from Earth, told them at the end of the operation.
“It was a complicated EVA.
Thomas Pesquet now counts 19 hours and 47 minutes spent on spacewalk.
It was for him the third of his career.
It was the seventh for Shane Kimbrough, and the 239th in the history of the ISS, which orbits 400 kilometers above Earth.
Mission interrupted for an hour
The astronauts had started the internal battery of their suit at 2:11 p.m. in France, marking the official start of their expedition, which ended seven hours and fifteen minutes later, at 9:26 p.m., still French hours.
But halfway through, the mission had to be temporarily put on hold due to concerns about Shane Kimbrough's suit.
NASA teams observed an interruption in the transmission of data to check the condition of his suit, as well as a sudden spike in the pressure of his cooling system.
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The astronaut had to return to the Station airlock and perform a reset, before exiting.
Meanwhile, Thomas Pesquet was waiting for him, hanging by his feet to a robotic arm.
The mission finally resumed, with control data stabilized.
Shane Kimbrough has at no time been "in danger", reassured NASA.
But a precious hour has been lost.
The two astronauts then moved the solar panel, folded on itself in a large roll of about 350 kilos, to where it was to be installed.
Finish the installation of the first panel on Sunday?
They secured it and attempted to unfold it, but an alignment issue interfered with the mechanism, preventing it from unfolding.
They then returned to the interior of the Station.
NASA must now decide what to do next: on Sunday, will the astronauts finish installing the first panel, or will they get down to the second, as initially planned?
VIDEO.
Relive Thomas Pesquet's spacewalk
The new solar panel set on Wednesday had been delivered by a SpaceX freighter. It will be 19 meters long when unrolled, and will be superimposed on top of one of the old panels. The latter is larger (35 meters long) and a part will therefore always be exposed to sunlight, continuing to produce energy. This old solar panel was installed in 2000 and its lifespan was estimated at around fifteen years.
It was little by little damaged by two factors: the emissions of the vessels going and coming towards the Station, and the micro-meteorites. "We thought that the damage would be much worse than what we actually saw," said Dana Weigel, NASA manager for the ISS, during a press briefing on Monday. The new solar panels are also expected to have a lifespan of around 15 years.