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Ready for the exit: Matthias Maurer checks the fit of his space suit on March 4, 2022
Photo: ESA / NASA / dpa
Esa astronaut Matthias Maurer is the fourth German to start an external mission on the International Space Station ISS on Wednesday from 1:50 p.m. German time.
For about six and a half hours, Maurer will be around 400 kilometers above the earth in the open space and will carry out maintenance work together with the American Raja Chari.
Among other things, the two astronauts are to attach new hoses to the station's cooling system, replace a camera and set up power and data connections on the external European research platform Bartolomeo.
"It's very exciting and I'm really looking forward to it," Maurer said in a short video beforehand.
»It will be a big highlight of my space flight.«
Chari and he would work at different places on the ISS, Maurer said.
According to the plan, he himself will “wander almost the entire space station” during the work, so that some people have joked that he should take his passport with him.
Esa will broadcast the mission live here.
The first field mission nearly ended in disaster
On November 11, Maurer flew with three colleagues from the US space agency Nasa in a US spacecraft to the ISS, where he is to remain until the end of April.
The 52-year-old from Saarland also carries out some scientific experiments there.
On Tuesday he released a video demonstrating how water behaves in zero gravity.
Due to its surface tension, the water wafts through the area as a sphere, which is deformed by an air current on the ISS.
Maurer is the fourth German on the ISS.
His three predecessors had also completed a meticulously planned and physically demanding field assignment: Thomas Reiter (2006), Hans Schlegel (2008) and Alexander Gerst (2014).
Reiter later described his mission as an “absolute highlight” – “you can’t get any closer to space”.
Gerst spoke of the “most remote workplace in the world”.
Maurer's field work could also be seen as one of the highlights of his mission, Europe's former space chief Jan Wörner told the German Press Agency in advance.
The maintenance work is very exhausting in addition to the danger.
»The first so-called EVAs were carried out during the Cold War to demonstrate efficiency.
The very first mission by Alexey Leonov in 1965 almost ended in disaster as he struggled to get back into the capsule.«
Today, such missions would have a factual sense.
'This is neither prestige nor adventure.
It's always about special tasks that have to be carried out outside of the ISS and cannot be done by the robotic arm," explained Wörner, who headed the European space agency ESA in Paris from 2015 to February 2021.
Chari wears red stripes, Mason doesn't
Despite the lower pressure inside, Maurer's US space suit is relatively stiff - astronauts always have to work against this resistance during external missions.
This makes the mission in the free cosmos even more difficult.
Example gloves: With the necessary fine motor movements on the outer skin of the ISS, you work with your hand as against the resistance of a tennis ball, astronauts describe it.
To ensure the lower pressure, astronauts must breathe pure oxygen for a period of time to flush nitrogen out of the blood.
Otherwise the so-called diving disease threatens.
Chari wears red stripes on his white space suit so that the control center can distinguish between the two astronauts on the screen.
The field trip comes amid the heightened tensions between Russia and the West over the Ukraine war.
At least for the time being, the US space agency Nasa and the Russian space agency Roskosmos have announced that they will continue to operate the ISS together.
In addition to Maurer and Chari, the Russians Anton Schkaplerow and Pjotr Dubrow and the Americans Mark Vande Hei, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron are currently stationed on board the ISS.
On Friday, the three Russians Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matweyev and Sergey Korsakov were added.
It is good that the ISS peacefully unites astronauts from different countries even in difficult political times, said the former ESA boss and current president of the German Academy of Science and Engineering, Wörner.
»On board are Russians, Americans and a European: Matthias Maurer from Saarland.
In the past, space travel has bridged conflicts on earth – the ISS is a symbol of this.«
jme/dpa