The Expedition 74 crew is gearing up for the first spacewalk of 2026 this week that will see two astronauts prepare the International Space Station for a new set of roll-out solar arrays. The orbital residents also had time on Monday to conduct microgravity research, pack a U.S. cargo craft, and maintain communications and life support systems.
NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman are scheduled to exit the orbital outpost’s Quest airlock at 8 a.m. EST on Thursday for a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk. The duo will install a modification kit and route cables setting up the station’s port side truss structure for a new roll-out solar array that will be delivered on an upcoming cargo mission. Other tasks include installing jumper cables, photographing station hardware, and swabbing external station surfaces to collect potential microorganism samples. Managers will preview Thursday’s spacewalk and a second spacewalk scheduled for Jan. 15 on NASA’s YouTube channel beginning at 2 p.m. on Tuesday.
Fincke and Cardman were joined by Chris Williams of NASA and Kimiya Yui of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) on Monday reviewing Thursday’s spacewalk procedures and confirming their readiness with mission controllers on the ground. Williams and Yui will assist the duo in and out of their spacesuits, pressurize and depressurize the Quest airlock, and monitor the spacewalkers as they work on their tasks in the external environment of space. Fincke and Cardman also checked out their spacesuit emergency jetpacks that enable a spacewalker to safely maneuver back to the orbital outpost in the unlikely event they become untethered.
Yui and Williams also partnered together at the end of the day on Monday installing cassettes containing protein crystal samples inside the Advanced Sample Experiment Processor-4 and photographing the research activities. The science work took place in the Destiny laboratory module and was done in support of the Pharmaceutical In-Space Laboratory set of experiments that is exploring developing and manufacturing medicines in space.
Earlier, Yui worked inside SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft transferring items as it nears its departure planned for later this month. Williams had begun his day with Cardman inside the Tranquility module packing hardware for stowage inside the NanoRacks Bishop airlock.
Roscosmos Flight Engineer Oleg Platonov started his day wearing an acoustic monitor around his neck that recorded him as he exhaled forcefully for a study researching lung function in weightlessness. Afterward, he inventoried medical kits ensuring pharmaceuticals and hardware were up to date. Cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev familiarized themselves with the same lung function study Platonov participated in and learned about the acoustic characteristics of the trachea, monitoring the respiratory system, and early diagnosis of potential space-caused breathing disorders.
Earlier, Mikaev worked inside the Zarya module searching for and documenting the location of a variety of hardware. Kud-Sverchkov also worked inside Zarya inventorying video hardware before replacing filters and cleaning life support gear in the Rassvet module.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
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