ISS SPACEWALK 48, Feb 16, 2018, NASA TV coverage begins 5:30 am ET

Update, February 14:  The spacewalk has been rescheduled again, this time to February 16 in order to accommodate the docking of Russia’s Progress MS-08 cargo spacecraft.  The launch of Progress MS-08 was delayed by two days, necessitating a longer rendezvous trajectory, so it will dock on February 15 instead of February 11 as originally planned.  Hence the spacewalk had to be postponed. It will still begin at 7:10 am ET and NASA TV coverage begins 5:30 am ET.  This will be Vande Hei’s fourth spacewalk and Kanai’s first.

Update, January 30:  Canadian engineers were able to develop a software solution to the LEE-B problem.  The spacewalk has been rescheduled for Feb. 15 to proceed with other tasks.  NASA TV coverage begins at 5:30 am ET; the spacewalk begins at 7:10 am ET.

Update, January 28:  The January 29 spacewalk has been postponed.  During the January 23 spacewalk, one of two Latching End Effectors (LEE-B) for Canada’s robotic Canadarm2 was replaced with a spare, but subsequently a problem was identified with the spare.  NASA initially decided to use the January 29 spacewalk to put the original LEE-B back in place, but then a Canadian Space Agency (CSA) robotics engineer came up with a solution to the problem.   CSA, one of the partners in the ISS program, announced that the January 29 spacewalk therefore has been postponed.

Spacewalk postponed thanks to a creative Canadian software solution https://t.co/XxIaRqtKRC #Canadarm2 #ISS (Photo: NASA) pic.twitter.com/bbRETMXL4U

— CanadianSpaceAgency (@csa_asc) January 28, 2018

Original Entry:  Two International Space Station (ISS) spacewalks — or extravehicular activity (EVAs) —  are planned for January 23 and January 29, 2018.  NASA TV will cover both of them beginning at 5:30 am ET.  Each spacewalk is expected to begin at approximately 7:10 am ET.

• January 23, EVA 47, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and NASA astronaut Scott Tingle, to replace one of two redundant latch end effectors (LEEs) on the robotic Candarm2 (LEE B) with a spare
• January 29, EVA 48, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and JAXA astronaut Norishige Kanai, to secure LEE B to the ISS Mobile Base System as a spare

Similar work was done on LEE A last October.  This will be the 3rd and 4th EVAs for Vande Hei and the first for Tingle and Kanai.