Astronauts aim to fix jammed rail car during spacewalk

Two American astronauts will take a short, but unplanned, spacewalk today (Dec. 21) to fix a stuck railcar on the International Space Station in time for the arrival of a new cargo ship later this week.

Tim Kopra and Scott Kelly will go outside to fix a broken part possibly on Monday.

The mobile transporter – used to position the station’s robotic Canadarm2 – stalled on December 16, just four inches from where it began its move while flight controllers at the NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston were attempting to reposition it robotically. When an uncrewed cargo vehicle arrives, it’s the job of the arm to reach out and grab it, then ease it in for a docking. The decision to send him into space came after the UK Government started to contribute funds to Esa’s ISS operations in 2012.

British astronaut Tim Peake travelled to the ISS last week and will spend six months aboard the craft.

The cause of the stall remains unclear, but “experts believe it may be related to a stuck brake handle”, according to ISS mission integration and operations manager Kenny Todd. Flight controllers had planned to move the transporter away from the center of the truss to worksite 2.

NASA will determine at a later time which firm will fly a mission to the station first.

Kelly, who will be making his third spacewalk, will be extravehicular crew member 1 (EV 1) wearing the US spacesuit bearing the red stripes.

On Saturday, NASA also said that Russian resupply ship left the International Space Station.

Although the start time has not yet been announced for either Monday or Tuesday, they do say that NASA TV coverage will begin 90 minutes prior to the start of the emergency spacewalk on the ISS. It will be the 191st spacewalk in support of station assembly and maintenance and the seventh spacewalk of the year by station crew members. Cleaning may sound mundane and pretty straightforward, but in a microgravity environment it is no easy task. As ISS is a closed system dust floats around everywhere instead of settling on the floor and other surfaces with gravity.

“It is extra-important to keep a clean house”.

Major Peake, a father of two, was recruited and trained by the European Space Agency (Esa).