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Transcript/ScriptThe Week in Space (TV)
HEADLINE: Secretive SpaceX Launch and Another Setback for NASA’s Artemis Program
TEASER: Hazardous hydrogen leak latest delay in NASA’s SLS timeline
PUBLISHED AT: 4/21/2022 at 2:45pm
BYLINE: Arash Arabasadi
CONTRIBUTOR:
DATELINE: Washington
VIDEOGRAPHER: AP/ REUTERS/ NASA TV/ NASA/ SPACEX/ ASTROBOTIC
SCRIPT EDITORS: BR, DLJ
NOTE: PART NO OBSCURE LOGO
VIDEO SOURCE (S): AP/ REUTERS/ NASA TV/ NASA/ SPACEX/ ASTROBOTIC
PLATFORMS (mark with X): WEB __ TV X RADIO __
TRT: 3:08
VID APPROVED BY: MAS
TYPE: TVPKG
UPDATE: ))
[[INTRO: This week - NASA suffers another setback in its Artemis program, a secretive SpaceX mission is launched, and Russian cosmonauts put in work at the International Space Station. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi wraps up The Week in Space.]]
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((NARRATOR))
This week begins at the International Space Station, where spacewalking cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev installed a control panel for the station’s 11-meter-long robotic arm.
NASA says this was the fourth spacewalk this year and the 249th such mission for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades. According to an official mission voiceover, the cosmonaut duo is scheduled for another spacewalk in coming days ((04/28)). They will release locks and restraints, beginning the process of monitoring and moving the robotic arm away from its stowed position.
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Meanwhile, inside the ISS, the NASA and SpaceX Crew-3 astronauts reflected on their months-long mission at the orbiting outpost.
[RADIO TRACK: NASA astronaut Kayla Barron speaking through an agency ((NASA)) feed.]
((Kayla Barron, NASA Astronaut))
“I think you can intellectualize the experience of living and working in microgravity, but until you experience it, you don’t really know what it’s going to be like. The spacewalks were absolutely incredible. That was something I was really hoping I would get a chance to do, and we were super lucky, because we all got the chance to do a spacewalk during this mission.”
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Crew-3 astronauts have called the ISS home since November, and they’re expected to undock the Endurance spacecraft from the station and return to Earth, splashing down off the Florida coast later this month.
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Their successors, SpaceX Crew-4, recently arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where they’re expected to launch Saturday aboard a craft called Freedom.
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((NARRATOR))
Across the country at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, SpaceX launched a hush-hush mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, or NRO. The Falcon 9 rocket carried a classified payload. According to its website, the NRO is the federal agency that protects the United States through space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Don’t expect a postcard anytime soon.
Of course, none of this today would be possible without earlier spaceflight missions like Apollo 16, which celebrated its 50th anniversary of its mission to the Moon this week.
[RADIO TRACK: Now-retired astronaut Charlie Duke was on board that flight, and at 86-years old, he tells AP about the experience of moonwalking.]
((Charlie Duke, Retired Astronaut))
“The Moon was really a beautiful environment. Desolate, but yet it had beauty about it. The different contrasts. The mountains that we saw. The blackness of space on the surface of the moon and shades of gray. It just was very captivating."
((NARRATOR))
Duke spoke from the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Out of 12 to have ever done it, he is one of four living astronauts to have set foot on the Moon. A feat NASA soon hopes to repeat.
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((NARRATOR))
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a company called Astrobotic unveiled its lunar lander, Peregrine ((PAIR-eh-grin)). NASA Administrator Bill Nelson was on hand, saying the lander will play a major role in the agency’s Artemis program, which looks to put the first woman and next man on the Moon.
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((NARRATOR))
But before that happens, NASA will need to successfully test and ultimately launch the world’s biggest rocket, the Space Launch System, or SLS, which will carry Artemis to the Moon. NASA scrubbed an SLS fueling test this week after discovering a hazardous hydrogen leak, the latest in a series of so-far unrelenting equipment issues and setbacks.
((Arash Arabasadi, VOA News))
NewsML Media TopicsArts, Culture, Entertainment and Media
NetworkVOA
Location (dateline)Washington D. C.
Embargo DateApril 21, 2022 19:45 EDT
Byline
((Arash Arabasadi, VOA News))
Brand / Language ServiceVoice of America - English
