NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams completed their first joint spacewalk on Thursday (January 30), nearly eight months after arriving at the International Space Station (ISS).
The two astronauts stepped outside the station to perform maintenance and collect samples from the exterior of the ISS, searching for any microorganisms that might have survived since launch. “Here we go,” Wilmore said as he emerged from the station, 420 kilometers above Spain.
The duo was originally supposed to spend just one week aboard the ISS after their arrival in June of the previous year. However, due to several issues with Boeing’s Starliner capsule that transported them, NASA decided to return it empty. This left the two veteran test pilots, both retired U.S. Navy captains, stranded in orbit until SpaceX could bring them back. Their return, initially scheduled for earlier, was delayed to late March or early April, extending their mission to 10 months due to delays in launching their replacements.
Williams, who had already completed a spacewalk two weeks prior with another NASA astronaut, and Wilmore, who was undertaking his first extravehicular activity of this mission, both have extensive experience from previous spacewalks on past ISS missions.
