Tri-Cities astronaut faces her most difficult space job this week. It will take 6+ hours

NASA astronaut Kayla Barron, from Richland, Wash., could get her wish to go on a spacewalk before the month ends.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced that Barron and NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn will venture outside the International Space Station Nov. 30 on a spacewalk.

Barron said before her first flight into space last week that one of the things she was most looking forward to was a possible spacewalk.

She launched from Earth on Thursday and arrived at the space station Friday for a six-month stay focused on research in the station’s microgravity environment.

Now she and Marshburn, who is making his fifth spacewalk, have been assigned to replace a faulty communications antenna mounted on a truss structure outside the space station.

They are scheduled to exit an airlock around 4:10 a.m. PST Tuesday, Nov. 30, with NASA planning live coverage on NASA TV starting at 2:30 a.m. PST. NASA TV is on the internet at NASA.gov and is included in some cable TV and satellite TV packages.

A spacewalk may be the most difficult task she undertakes at the space station, Barron said as she was preparing for her launch.

Spacewalks require “incredible mental focus” to do detailed tasks, Barron said.

“And it is really physical because working in the suit is hard,” she said.

But her history as an athlete has helped prepare her, she said. She is a 2010 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where she competed in cross country and won honors in track.

The space walk she is assigned to is expected to take about six hours and 30 minutes.

An antenna that is used to send signals to Earth via NASA’s satellite system recently stopped working, according to NASA.

Other communication systems are available, but NASA officials decided a new antenna should be installed to ensure multiple communication systems are working.

The planned spacewalk will be the 245th at the International Space Station in support of assembly, maintenance and upgrades.

This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 5:00 AM.