Though NASA has been streaming on Twitch for a few years now, over the past week the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has begun to stream repairs to the International Space Station live online….from space! Two separate broadcasts have gone live, one last week and one earlier today, featuring astronauts from the ISS installing new solar arrays on the station. Coverage began live at 6:30 AM ET and lasted just over seven hours on Twitch. Shane Kimbrough of NASA and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) worked through the broadcast to install the second of six new ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays. You can even watch the whole thing by clicking here.
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According to an official release from NASA about today’s broadcast, they wrote: “The current solar arrays are functioning well, but have begun to show signs of degradation, as expected, as they were designed for a 15-year service life. The first pair of the space station’s original solar arrays were deployed in December 2000 and have been powering the station for more than 20 years. The new solar arrays are being positioned in front of six of the current arrays, increasing the station’s total available power from 160 kilowatts to a maximum of 215 kilowatts. The same solar array design will be used to power elements of the agency’s Gateway lunar-orbiting outpost.”
Elsewhere on their site NASA revealed a schedule of other live events that will be broadcast from their channels that are specifically about ship repair, modification, or docking/undocking of crafts. They include:
June 30, Wednesday
1 p.m. – NASA Science Live: International Asteroid Day (All Channels)
July 1, Thursday
8:15 p.m. – Coverage of the Docking of the ISS Progress 78 Cargo Ship to the International Space Station (Docking scheduled at 9:03 p.m. EDT) (All Channels)
July 6, Tuesday
10:45 a.m. – Coverage of the Undocking of the SpaceX CRS-22 Cargo Craft from the International Space Station (Undocking scheduled at 11 a.m. EDT) (All Channels)
July 15, Thursday
12:45 p.m. – Coverage of the Launch of the “Nauka” Multipurpose Laboratory Module from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (Launch scheduled at 1:16 p.m. EDT) (All Channels)
July 17, Saturday
10:15 a.m. – Coverage of the Undocking of the ISS Progress 77 Cargo Craft and the Pirs Docking Compartment from the International Space Station (Undocking scheduled at 10:46 a.m. EDT) (All Channels)
July 23, Friday
11:45 a.m. – Coverage of the Docking of the “Nauka” Multipurpose Laboratory Module to the International Space Station (Docking scheduled at 12:28 p.m. EDT) (All Channels)
