NASA astronaut Nick Hague will install patches to the agency’s NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) X-ray telescope on the International Space Station as part of a spacewalk scheduled for Jan. 16. Hague, along with astronaut Suni Williams, will also complete other tasks during the outing.
NICER will be the first NASA observatory repaired on-orbit since the last servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.
Hague and other astronauts, including Don Pettit, who is also currently on the space station, rehearsed the NICER patch procedures in the NBL (Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory), a 6.2-million-gallon indoor pool at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, in 2024.
