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so as we've talked about quite a bit

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this week a lot of preparations for an

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upcoming russian spacewalk currently

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targeted to take place on august 10th

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today in mission control i'm joined by

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one of our resident spacewalk specialist

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devin balch who's here to tell us a

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little bit more about what they're going

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to be doing uh during the planned six to

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six and a half hour spacewalk on monday

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so devin first off thanks so much for

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joining me it's always great to get

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insight because we don't you know always

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know exactly it's tough to my russian

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isn't too good so i have trouble reading

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the ops notes um but i really appreciate

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you being here um starting off you know

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they have a lot of tasks like every

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spacewalk's always packed usually

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starting off with some of the science

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work that they're going to be doing what

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are some of the external experiments

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that they're going to be interacting

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with or replacing sure so uh

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one of the first ones they'll be working

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with is the test experiment which is a

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a way that they can take samples they

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have this swab device that is in a

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airtight container and they can go

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around space station if they deem fit to

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swab an area that they need an analysis

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on say

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underneath a thermal blanket or a micro

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meteorite shield or if a vent is

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showing something

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maybe swipe that they put it in their

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container and then bring it home and

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bring it to the ground and then they can

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do their analysis on it so and they're

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going to swipe

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a radiator and a solar array this time

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to see if there's anything deposited on

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it that is

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shows concern okay and there's other

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experiments i know there's one that

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they're going to be photographing and

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one that they're actually going to be

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kind of reorienting and working with

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that's correct so um

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the expose r they're going that's a

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materials uh witness test and it has

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quite a few different materials on it

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that they uh it's biological and organic

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materials and they've exposed that to

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space and they're going to take pictures

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of this just analyze those photographs

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to see how those are

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reacting to the space

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environment and also they're going to

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go up on and reorient this environmental

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experiment that is

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is studying the environments of space

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and they're going to reorient it to just

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get a different aspect of of data from

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the environments of space so okay and

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it's not just going to be science work

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for them out there they're going to be

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doing some maintenance work as well

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they're going to be installing some new

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items what are they going to be you know

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attaching to the outside of the station

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sure so

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one of their maintenance tasks is

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they're going to install some gap

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spanners which those are just soft

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handrails that

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create a a nicer translation path say

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the first one that they install is going

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to go around an experiment and so that

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takes them around the experiment so they

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don't come in contact with stuff

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climbing over it exactly correct yeah

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and then another one they're going to

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install that uh it just gives them a

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better translation path between two

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handrails so gap spanners are used to

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create translation paths and ease

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translation paths i guess so and also

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one of the other tasks one of the

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maintenance tasks is that on another a

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previous cva or spacewalk they went out

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and saw that one of the navigation

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antennas was missing its cover and so

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they went and looked at another cover

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and the fasteners or screws were coming

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out they were backing out so they built

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these what they call these fastener kits

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and they're going to go install these

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fastener kits on

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wall or what they call a wall antenna or

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navigation antenna one through five and

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they just inhibit the the fasteners from

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backing out so they don't lose another

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cover okay

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and then one of the other one of the

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things that i had saw that kind of

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caught my eye was they're actually going

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to be cleaning one of the windows on the

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russian segment so i mean what what's

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happening in that space environment that

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could cause a window to get dirty and

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what the heck are they doing to clear i

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mean there's no windex

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microgravity yeah so what happened is

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they uh we have a lot of visiting

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vehicles and all those have

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rocket engines and they have an exhaust

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just like your car so

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it's stirring up particles and it's

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collected and they notice that

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that window looked hazy so they took a

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test experiment out there and swiped

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across it and left a big streak across

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it on a previous eba or a spacewalk and

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so they

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they did analysis and they decided we

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should clean that window and make it

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like it was when they flew it so

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they developed this this

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tool kit that has a swabs two swabs in

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it with handles on it and the swabs are

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kind of

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like terry cloth okay and it's just kind

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of they're going to go out there and

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buff the the

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little porthole window and then put it

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in its container take the next one out

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and buff that one it's kind of like

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similar to what you would use on your

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your car headlights when they get hazy

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to clean them so gotcha so i mean some

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of the other russian cosmonauts put

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their fingers in the sliding glass door

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and now they got to go clean that's

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right exactly okay well and one of the

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other things you had mentioned earlier

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was antennas they're going to be doing

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some replacement work on one they're

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also going to be jettisoning something

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aren't they that's what that that's

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always kind of fascinating

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what goes into you know actually jets so

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i mean they're basically kind of

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throwing something overboard they sure

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are so

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previously i stated that one of the

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navigation antennas

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was missing its cover

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so they're going to replace that that

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antenna so to get it back into its

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nominal configuration okay so

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the antenna is number six and they're

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gonna go out and the

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the antenna is hardwired so they have to

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cut the cable off of it

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and then they'll coil that up and then

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they have to go and and uh disconnect

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the connector at the other end

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and

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uh

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gennady will remove the old antenna and

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place the new antenna that has the

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hardwired cable on it and they'll

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reroute the cable and mate that cable

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where the old one was and then they get

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in position they take the old antenna

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down and get in a

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certain position that the the all the

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scientists have analyzed

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exactly the direction that that needs to

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go and the speed and everything else so

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it's very a critical time you don't want

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it to come back and re-contact station

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somewhere so they have a specific angle

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and cone that they're going to to to

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exactly where yeah and there's some

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there's some play with it yeah it's not

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exactly they don't have a laser with

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intolerance exactly yes so and they'll

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jettison that and uh

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hopefully it will re-enter

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and fire you know it'll be a fiery ball

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and nothing will hit the ground all

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right and then one final task that i

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know they have is they're going to be

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taking a lot of pictures of the russian

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segment itself i mean why why do they

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need to go out and do this and what can

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people down here learn from them doing

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that well they take pictures every

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pretty much every spacewalk and so they

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do

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extensive uh

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analysis on those and they'll see that

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some thermal blankets have a

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discoloration or

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uh shield doesn't look quite right so

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they want to go and take a

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picture a close-up picture a

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high-definition picture of that area or

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they may have indications of an exhaust

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event it's not

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acting like they think it should so they

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may go and take a picture of that or

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that area and like i said they're going

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to take pictures of the expose r

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experiment that materials experiment to

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see

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how that's being affected by space so

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space is a harsh environment so there's

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things out there that we are still

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learning so give it a thorough look over

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and see if anything isn't looking like

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it's supposed to supposed to yeah all

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right well

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that's a i mean a rough preview of

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everything that they're going to be

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doing on monday be sure to watch the

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space walk live the coverage time at the

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bottom of your screen starting at 8 45

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a.m central time 9 45 a.m eastern devin

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balch again spacewalk specialist thanks