The entire spacewalk, referred to as an Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA), is available to watch online, but NASA also split the walk into various key moments, such as the astronauts’ trip from the airlock to the worksite, and when they secured frames and struts to the outside of the station using power tools.
The EVA lasted seven hours and four minutes in total, concluding at 1:16pm ET. It started at 6:12am ET, when the two astronauts switched their spacesuits to battery power.
Astronauts conduct EVAs when they have to carry out certain science experiments or repairs and upgrades to the outside of their spacecraft. They typically last between five and eight hours.
In the video below, Rubins works to place a bolt on the solar array’s support structures while the Earth spins slowly 261 miles beneath her.
The purpose of installing the bracket support structures on the EVA is to enable astronauts to further upgrade the solar arrays in future, NASA said.
Another clip shows Rubins traveling to the solar panel worksite. In it, she can be seen handling the safety tether attaching her to the space station, which is one of the safety measures the astronauts take to prevent them from drifting into space.
The last video clip uploaded shows Rubins re-entering the airlock after Glover, before the EVA comes to an end.
The entire EVA was also uploaded as a single video lasting just under nine-and-a-half hours, using footage from helmet cams and video feeds from cameras mounted on the outside of the ISS.
In addition, an animated clip shows the entire process the two astronauts carried out condensed into around six minutes.
The EVA was Glover’s third spacewalk. Last year, he became the first African American to start a six-month-long stint on the ISS. In an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris that was filmed on Wednesday and aired on Saturday, Glover explained what it felt like to work in the vacuum of space, and how he was able to stay focused.
“One of my colleagues said to me to ‘keep your world small—to focus on the thing right in front of you—and then slowly widen out that world-view.’”
“And that really helped, because the first time that I did just sit back and look down at the Earth, I just wanted to do that for the rest of the seven hours that I was outside.
“It was pretty amazing, but we had a lot of work to do, so it was also very busy. Busy and beautiful.”