On Tuesday morning, NASA Astronauts Robert Behnken and Chris Cassidy conducted their fourth spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) as they prepared it for future improvements.
Behnken and Cassidy install storage component for tools outside ISS
The astronauts who arrived at the ISS in late May conducted a five and half hours expedition which was the tent extravehicular activity by the two spacemen. According to NASA, this was the 300th spacewalk conducted by US astronauts.
In early December last year, protective storage component called Robotic Tool Stowage (RiTS) for robotic tools was launched to the station. The two astronauts installed the storage unit is for Dextre robot outside the station’s Mobile Base System. The component is expected to be permanent and will power external robots. Dextre can use Robotic External leak locator components to detect any ammonia leak which is employed in the cooling system. Also, Behnken and Cassidy removed two components at the base of ISS’s solar arrays used before the launch.
Equally the spacemen set the Tranquility module for NanoRacks commercial airlock expected to arrive at the ISS later this year on SpaceX cargo flight. In the course of preparing the module, the astronauts found foreign orbital debris and removed it using a crapper.
More spacewalks expected to replace aging batteries
A spacewalk expected later this year is expected to complete upgrades of the power system to the ISS through replacement of the lithium-ion battery that shorted out following its replacement in 2019. This is likely to the end of the upgrades on the power system to the ISS that have taken place in the last 3½ years. So far 24 new lithium-ion batteries have been installed with the goal being replacing all the 48 nickel-hydrogen batteries that had aged. Interestingly the replacement of the batteries is something else considering the new batteries weigh 428 pounds each.
So far there have been 11 spacewalks for the upgrades since 2017 to replace the aging batteries. The astronauts are expected to return on August 2 onboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
