Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov and flight engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) are scheduled to venture outside the space station at 9:10 a.m. in a second attempt to install a pair of cameras on the hull. The cameras are part of a Canadian commercial endeavor with Roscosmos designed to downlink Earth observation imagery to Internet-based subscribers. The two cosmonauts also plan to retrieve an experiment package housed on the hull.
An initial effort to install the cameras Dec. 27 proved unsuccessful when flight controllers at the Russian Mission Control Center outside Moscow could not receive data from the cameras. The expedition crew members performed troubleshooting on several cable connectors and now believe the problem has been solved.
The spacewalk will be the sixth in Kotov's career and the third for Ryazanskiy. Kotov will be designated as extravehicular (EV) crew member 1, and Ryazanskiy will be EV2. Both spacewalkers will wear Russian Orlan spacesuits bearing blue stripes. For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit NASA.gov.
NASA’S MOON BUSINESS: NASA will host a media teleconference at 12:30 p.m. Jan. 27, to discuss the Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) initiative.
Through Lunar CATALYST, NASA seeks proposals to partner in the development of reliable and cost-effective commercial robotic lunar lander capabilities that will enable the delivery of payloads to the lunar surface. Such capabilities could support commercial activities on the moon while enabling new science and exploration missions of interest to NASA and the larger scientific and academic communities.
Media will have an opportunity to discuss the initiative with NASA officials following an 11 a.m. pre-proposal conference call with the U.S. private sector.
TELESCOPE PASSES MILESTONE: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has passed its first significant mission milestone for 2014 -- a Spacecraft Critical Design Review that examined the telescope's power, communications and pointing control systems.
"This is the last major element-level critical design review of the program," said Richard Lynch, NASA Spacecraft Bus Manager for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "What that means is all of the designs are complete for the Webb and there are no major designs left to do."
The details, designs, construction and testing plans and the spacecraft's operating procedures were subjected to rigorous review by an independent panel of experts. The weeklong review involved extensive discussions on all aspects of the spacecraft to ensure the plans to finish construction would result in a vehicle that enables the powerful telescope and science instruments to deliver their unique and invaluable views of the universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope, successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. It will observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the first galaxies formed and see unexplored planets around distant stars. The Webb telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
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Another spacewalk planned for the International Space Station