An Indian Origin astronaut, Raja Chari hovered around the ISS and performed several modifications. On Wednesday, astronauts from Expedition 66 of the International Space Station took part in a spacewalk. An astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA) accompanied the Indian astronaut.
All About the Spacewalk
The two astronauts activated their spacesuits as soon as the clock struck at 6:02 IST. This was the start of the 248th spacewalk done by the International Space Station to date. Matthias Maurer’s first spacewalk, and Raja Chari’s second, are noteworthy.
Raja Chari had a smooth trip while docked at a robotic arm, according to spaceflight now. When the radio control crew tried to contact him, he said that the operations were ‘far better than business class,’ and that everything was running perfectly.
Raja Chari’s Participation in the Spacewalk
When his partner’s helmet camera went loose, the Indian astronaut went ahead to help.  According to reports, Raja Chari extended his arm to aid ESA astronaut Maurer in repairing the spacecraft with a pair of wire tyres. Although replacing the camera was critical to the success of the spacewalk, readers point out that it took time and required the astronauts to skip several lower-priority chores that they had scheduled ahead of time.
What changes were made to the International Space Station?
The two astronauts in charge of the spacewalk installed replacement hoses to the Radiator Beam Valve Module of the space station. This allowed them to keep the ISS’s internal temperature under control. Chari and Maurer also added newly updated ammonia jumpers to the cooling system.
This would assist them in achieving maximum effectiveness. They also pushed power connections on an experiment platform and assisted with the replacement of a high-definition camera. The ESA astronaut had some water beneath his helmet at the finish of the spacewalk, but he was fine.
We're going on a spacewalk!
Tune in LIVE as @Astro_Raja and @Astro_Matthias make upgrades to the @Space_Station. Today's spacewalk begins around 8:50am ET (12:50 UTC) and will run for about six-and-a-half hours: https://t.co/kBnWrMYv13
— NASA (@NASA) March 23, 2022
Who is Raja Chari?
Raja Chari
Chari grew up in Cedar Falls, Iowa, after being born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In 2020, astronaut Raja Chari was chosen as the commander of the Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station, and it was launched a year later. Chari, a colonel in the US Air Force, was chosen as an astronaut in 2017. In his career, Chari has logged over 2,500 hours of flight time. He was also chosen for the Artemis Team, which means he could be sent to a future lunar mission.
Srinivas Chari, his father, moved to the United States from Hyderabad when he was young to pursue an engineering degree.
Chari in NASA
Chari joined the crew in August 2017 after completing two years of Astronaut Candidate Training. He later became the Director of the NASA Commercial Crew Program’s Joint Test Team. He is now the commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station, which was launched on November 10, 2021.
The spacewalk took place amid persistent tensions between the United States, Europe, and Russia over Ukraine, which has crossed over the space, with all three applying restrictions on the ground.
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