Thomas Pesquet’s Spacewalk

On Friday 13 January, Thomas Pesquet is scheduled to make his first space walk. Having first flown into space on the 17 November 2016, Thomas has spent the last two months orbiting the Earth at 27,600 kilometres per hour. Thomas will not be space walking alone, he will be joined by NASA colleague Shane Kimbrough. Together they will be completing work that aims to upgrade the power systems aboard the International Space Station. This work was started last week by Shane and space walk veteran Peggy Whitson.

Space walks are strenuous tasks often lasting many hours. During this time the astronauts must work in large bulky specialised suits. The suit Thomas will be wearing is called an Extravehicular Mobility Unit. These suits were designed and built by the Americans for the Space Shuttle program. The design is still used today on board the International Space Station. The suit itself is a full body covering weighing in at over 55kg. Often reported as bulky and cumbersome, the suit is designed to provide every protection to the astronauts as well as maintaining a breathable atmosphere for them to work in.

This space walk isn’t the sole reason for Thomas Pesquet’s mission into space. His arrival in space signalled the start of the Proxima mission. As part of this mission Thomas will be involved in over 50 experiments on behalf of the European Space Agency and the French National Centre for Space Studies. The experiments scheduled for Proxima cover a range of topics, from the Seedling Growth-3 biology experiment to the Super Alloy research being conducted on board with the Electromagnetic Levitator. As always, the mission contains lots of human-based research involving studies into astronaut dexterity, metabolism in space, and further investigations in astronauts bones, muscles, and skin.

To keep up with Thomas’ space walk you can tune in live here: NASA TV Live Link and to follow the rest of his mission, be sure to follow his Twitter page and the ESA website