NASA’s second spacewalk of 2025 is set to begin today, with NASA’s Starliner astronauts tasked with retrieving hardware from the exterior of the space station.
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are scheduled to begin the station’s 274th spacewalk, U.S. EVA 92 early Jan. 30, at approximately 8:00 a.m. EST (1300 GMT). A livestream of of the pair’s extravehicular activity (EVA) will begin at 6:30 a.m. EST (1130 GMT), and will be available on NASA’s streaming platforms, as well as here on Space.com.
This will be Williams’ tenth EVA, and comes on the heels of her ninth, U.S. Spacewalk 91, which she performed with NASA astronaut Nick Hague Jan. 16. The upcoming EVA will be Wilmore’s fifth. The duo will spend about 6.5 hours outside the International Space Station (ISS) to disconnect a piece of communications equipment and collect surface sample swabs to look for microbes on the exterior of various ISS modules.
On the top of Williams’ and Wilmore’s agenda for their spacewalk will be dislodging the radio frequency group (RFG) assembly, an S-band antenna being returned to Earth for refurbishment. Astronauts during a previous spacewalk, U.S. EVA 86, attempted its removal, but were unsuccessful in releasing the component from its mounting plate.
For this EVA, Williams, designated EV-1, and Wilmore, EV-2, will be using a new wrench tool designed to release the compressive force on the RFG wedge clamps, hopefully enabling the astronauts to remove the hardware effectively. After stowing its protective covering, Williams will inspect the RFG while Wilmore secures his spacesuit to the station’s robotic arm for relocation to assist in the component’s removal. Once disconnected, EV-2 is tasked with stowing the piece in the station’s Quest airlock.
Next on their agenda, the astronauts will split a set of to-dos between them. Williams is assigned surface sample collection, while Wilmore adjusts a spare part for the ISS robotic arm. Williams will traverse the station’s handrails from Quest to the belly of U.S. lab module, Destiny. There, she will swab two vents on the module’s exterior, before heading back to Quest to collect similar samples in various exterior locations around the airlock. The samples will be tested for signs of microorganisms on the outside of the space station.
Wilmore has a much shorter distance to travel for his assignment. On the same external stowage platform (ESP) as the RFG, Wilmore will adjust a large elbow joint stored on the ESP as a spare part. His adjustments will better position the part for access and retrieval should it be needed for future use. Then both astronauts will reenter Quest, close the airlock, and officially wrap up their spacewalk.
Williams and Wilmore both arrived at the ISS last June, aboard the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. The astronauts were only slated for a 10-day mission, but issues with Starliner during docking led to multiple delays in their return, with NASA ultimately deciding to have Starliner make the journey back to Earth uncrewed.
With a slight shift in upcoming astronaut assignments, Williams and Wilmore were added to the manifest for ISS Expedition 72 as members of Crew-9, which launched two astronauts, instead of four, to the station a few weeks after Starliner’s departure. As such, Williams was assigned the role of station commander, and Wilmore, flight engineer.
Crew-9 is currently slated to return to Earth sometime after the arrival of Crew-10. Those astronauts will lift off aboard a brand new, fresh-from-the-factory Crew Dragon, adding a fifth spacecraft the SpaceX’s fleet of Crew Dragons currently in service.
Crew-10 was initially scheduled for early 2025, positioning Crew-9 to return with Williams and Wilmore sometime in February. However, delays in the new Dragon’s manufacturing have pushed back that launch to late March, moving Crew-9’s return to likely early April.
