The astronauts met the allotted six and a half hours to complete the task
NEW YORK, December 2. /tass/. American astronauts Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron returned to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday after a spacewalk to replace a faulty antenna. The broadcast was conducted on the website of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The spacewalk began at 06:15 East Coast time (14:15 Moscow Time) and ended at 12:47 (20:47 Moscow time). Thus, the astronauts met the allotted six and a half hours to complete the task. As previously reported in the department, the antenna installed on one of the farms with solar panels has recently stopped transmitting a signal. Although this did not significantly affect the functioning of the ISS, NASA preferred to have a fully operational communication system.
Initially, it was planned that Marshburn and Barron would replace the antenna on November 30, but the department's leadership canceled this mission just a few hours before it began, pointing to "debris approaching the station" as the reason. On the same day, after analyzing the additional information received, NASA came to the conclusion that these fragments do not pose a threat to the astronauts outside the station, or to the entire ISS as a whole.
Marshburn and Barron were helped to get to the antenna by the Canadarm-2 manipulator arm, which was controlled by European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer from the station. Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, Americans Mark Vande Hai and Raja Chari are also on duty at the ISS.
