ISS Expedition 66 Astronauts Raja Chari and Matthias Maurer concluded their U.S. EVA-80 spacewalk
Today, March 23, 2022; ISS-Expedition 66 Astronauts – Flight Engineers Raja Chari of NASA and Matthias Maurer of ESA (European Space Agency) – concluded their spacewalk at 3:26 p.m. EDT [19:26 UTC] after 6 hours and 54 minutes in preparation for upcoming solar array installation. U.S. EVA-80 is the 248thspacewalk in support of space station assembly, upgrades and maintenance, and was the second in Raja Chari’s career and the first for Matthias Maurer.
Raja and Matthias completed their major objective for today to install hoses on a Radiator Beam Valve Module that routes ammonia through the station’s heat-rejecting radiators to keep systems at the proper temperature.
Further, into the EVA, the crew also installed a power and data cable on the European Columbus module’s Bartolomeo science platform, replaced an external camera on the station’s truss, and conducted other upgrades to station hardware. The pair deferred a few secondary tasks, such as torque resets and cable routing, to a future spacewalk.