NASA astronauts carry out next spacewalk for room station ability upgrades

This spacewalk, very similar to just one that took place last Friday, was centered on replacing batteries for a single of the power channels on the far starboard truss of the station. Mainly because the astronauts completed some of the jobs for this spacewalk final 7 days, they also labored on responsibilities scheduled for later spacewalks, routed electricity and ethernet cables, and laid the groundwork for foreseeable future electrical power program upgrades.

These cables will deliver improved sights on potential spacewalks, according to NASA.

These energy system updates, nonetheless, are absolutely nothing like replacing batteries in your distant. The new batteries each individual have a mass of 428 lbs.

For this spacewalk, Cassidy was crew member I and wore a spacesuit displaying red stripes, though Behnken served as crew member II in a fit with no stripes. Hurley and Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner served Cassidy and Behnken into their spacesuits. Hurley operated the station’s robotic arm to assistance the astronauts outside the house the station.

The battery replacements, which will have a 20-year life time, will set the station in a substantially much better configuration for the extensive term, claimed Kenneth Todd, deputy International House Station method manager, all through a NASA press conference last week.

Behnken not too long ago talked over the spacewalk, and why it is essential to exchange the batteries, in the course of a phone to the space station from CNN Innovation and Area Reporter Rachel Crane.

“When the space station is in the sunshine, it truly is accumulating strength and it desires to retailer for when it truly is in the dim,” he said. “And so people batteries, as they are cycled time and time once more, they have on down and require to be changed. And so periodically that upkeep is needed.”

Behnken claimed he was seeking forward to yet another spacewalk knowledge.

“I truly appear forward to the views of the Earth when we get a no cost second,” he reported. “I think every astronaut, when they go out on their initial spacewalk, they are genuinely centered on making an attempt to get all the functions completed and do a very good work so that they can likely get a possibility to do another just one if the prospect offers by itself.

“But following you have done a pair and know what to anticipate as you go as a result of it, it is vital to, you know, just take some psychological images, some mental photographs, or bear in mind what it was like to be outdoors.”