After the delays of the launches of the NASA Aspire test system and those of the Iridium Next satellites, under the responsibility of SpaceX, yesterday, on March 29th, 3 rockets launched out of the 5 planned ones. Even more, a spacewalk out of ISS also happened yesterday. Indeed, yesterday it was a busy day in space.
3 rockets launched yesterday
Even though 5 rockets were planned for launching yesterday, only three made it:
- A GSLV Mk.II with an improved second stage took off to put into orbit the Indian communications satellite GSAT-6A;
- A Soyuz 2-1v did the same with the experimental satellite Emka of the Russian Ministry of Defense – It is believed to be a terrestrial observation satellite;
- A Long Macha 3B rocket took off to put into orbit the satellites Beidou-3, MEO-9, and MEO-10 belonging to the Chinese navigation system Beidou – It is the 9th Chinese space launch so far this year;
All the three launches were successful.
A spacewalk out of ISS
While all these launches were made from land, of course, Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold carried out a spacewalk out of the International Space Station. The astronauts installed a pair of antennas to reinforce the signal from the external Wi-Fi network of the ISS, which is increasingly used by instruments installed on the outside to transmit data
Besides, they removed a couple of ammonia hoses from the refrigeration system that appeared to leak and sent them to ground for inspection, and exchanged a group of damaged cameras.
It was the spacewalk number 209 dedicated to the construction, maintenance, and updating of the ISS.
With this on, Drew Feustel accumulated 7 spacewalks with a total of 48 hours and 28 minutes spent working in space.
In conclusion, March 29th was a busy day in space with 3 rockets launches and one spacewalk out of the ISS for maintenance and repairs. Also, it would’ve been even much busier if the other two launches wouldn’t have been postponed.
