Southern Missouri native Mike Hopkins is involved in a spacewalk today, marking his second one in a week. Today’s spacewalk will make additional upgrades to the International Space Station. Hopkins, a NASA astronaut from Richland, has been living aboard the floating space structure since November.
Spacewalkers @Astro_illini and @AstroVicGlover are pictured below during Wednesday's spacewalk. They will exit the station again on Monday for another spacewalk. More… https://t.co/31plsfOck2 pic.twitter.com/xjcH4yzmPX
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) January 30, 2021
During an interview last fall, Hopkins told Missourinet the space mission is his second one.
“I’m excited to float again. There’s nothing like that,” he said. “It’s an experience that is hard to describe and that’s actually one of my goals when I go up this time is to figure out how to describe – how to put it into words to people down on Earth.”
He is commanding a crew of three others. They blasted off in the same SpaceX vehicle that launched into space last summer with St. Louis County native Bob Behnken on board.
Hopkins and company plan to return to Earth in the spring.
He has family in Richland and central Missouri’s Camdenton.
NASA TV coverage of today’s spacewalk begins at 4:30 a.m. CST. The walk is expected to begin around 6 a.m. and last about six and a half hours.
Previous stories:
Missouri native rockets to space on historic mission: https://www.missourinet.com/2020/11/15/missouri-native-rockets-to-space-on-historic-mission/
(AUDIO) Missouri native prepares to blast off to space: https://www.missourinet.com/2020/09/30/audio-missouri-native-prepares-to-blast-off-to-space/
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