Tim’s spacewalk highlights

On 15 January ESA astronaut Tim Peake and NASA astronaut Tim Kopra stepped outside of the International Space Station to replace a failed power regulator and install cabling.

The meticulously planned and executed sortie was stopped early after Tim Kopra reported a small amount of water building up in his helmet. The two Tims worked in close cooperation with each other to return to the Space Station, with NASA commander Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Sergei Volkov waiting inside to help them out of their suits.

They left the confines of the weightless research laboratory at 12:48 GMT after their five-hour preparations to don their spacesuits and purge their bodies of nitrogen to avoid decompression sickness.

Tim Kopra went first to the far end of the Station’s starboard truss, with Tim Peake following with the replacement Sequential Shunt Unit. Swapping the suitcase-sized box was a relatively simple task but one that needed to be done safely while the clock was ticking.

With their main task complete, the Tims separated for individual jobs for the remainder of their time outside but was told by Mission Control to return to the airlock earlier than planned.

The 4 hour 43 minute spacewalk was the first for a British astronaut. The spacewalk officially ended at 17:31 GMT when the Tims began the repressurisation of the Quest airlock.

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