How To See The International Space Station Without Leaving Tyler
You should be able to spot the International Space Station in the East Texas sky several days next week around 6 am. And this Friday, you'll be able to watch from the couch as the astronauts do a real live spacewalk.
If you're an early morning person you have some pretty cool advantages. The house is quiet and you can put two thoughts together without being interrupted, you can get some work done without your inbox blowing up because everyone else is still asleep, AND you can catch a glimpse of the International Space Station. Cool! Grab a cup of coffee and have a moment.
We'll have a chance to view the International Space Station over East Texas skies next week. NASA says the best sightings happen within a few hours before or after sunrise or sunset because that's the time of day when the sun reflects off the space station and contrasts against the darker sky. On Tuesday, March 9th, Tyler will have a five-minute window for viewing the space station and it will start at 6:47 am. To find out which direction to look, click HERE. Other viewing opportunities will happen between March 10th and 13th.
And, this Friday, March 5th at 4:30 am, the astronauts will exit the hatch and perform work on the International Space Station, and NASA will stream it live. It might look a little like the Netflix show Away, minus the suspense of Commander Emma Green (Hilary Swank) having to go untethered for a second. That show is wild!
The live spacewalk may be suspenseful too, we'll see. NASA flight engineers Kate Rubins and Soichi Noguchi will "venture outside the orbiting outpost to vent ammonia from the Early Ammonia System and complete several other tasks," according to NASA.
This will also be part of the spacewalk on Friday:
The pair will install a “stiffener” on the Quest airlock thermal cover to prevent it from blowing out when residual atmosphere escapes as the hatch is opened. [Colleague Victor] Glover began addressing this issue on a previous spacewalk by installing a stronger magnet to keep the cover closed. The crew also will remove and replace a wireless video transceiver assembly. Rubins will be EV 1 and Noguchi will be EV 2.
The International Space Station has had a continuous human presence for the past twenty years, and NASA said in that time, 242 people from 19 countries have visited the orbiting lab, and it has hosted almost 3,000 research investigations from researchers in 108 countries.
You can experience it too if you're willing to get up early. The spacewalk is supposed to last about six and a half hours, so even if you roll out of bed at 7 am, you can still catch about half of it.
If you stream it on your smart TV, it might feel like a movie so caramel corn might be needed. See it live on NASA's website and the NASA TV channel.