Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev puts finishing touches on an old Russian Orlan spacesuit that will be released by hand from the space station during the next spacewalk. Image credit: NASA

SuitSat gets its final 'wash and brush-up' ready for amateur radio space debut

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev continue to have their sleep cycle shifted five hours to prepare the crew for their second spacewalk.

The crew is also focusing on pulling together and “staging” all the tools and equipment required for the upcoming spacewalk.

Mission managers decided to push back the spacewalk one day to Feb. 3, allowing the crew extra preparation time. The spacewalkers will deploy an old Russian spacesuit that will act as an amateur radio transmitter. They will also move a cargo boom adapter from one module to another, perform maintenance and retrieve experiments.

Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Jeffrey Williams have been named to Expedition 13, the next crew to live and work aboard the International Space Station.

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