Miles Above Us, Astronauts Give The Space Station A New Door

That will allow NASA to boost the station’s crew from six to seven, greatly expanding the time available for research.

Shortly afterward, they made their way outside the orbiting laboratory to begin the work of attaching an global docking adaptor, launched aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship last month. It will work along with Boeing’s CST 100 Starliner and SpaceX’s crew dragon.

On Wednesday (Aug. 17), the ground robotics team successfully removed the IDA from the Dragon spacecraft’s trunk using the space station’s robotic arm, and positioned it 3 feet (0.9 meters) from the front of the port. Then the robotic arm would carry the adaptor to the spot where both astronauts would be working. Astronaut Steve Bowen knows a thing or two about the ISS. These ports will work as parking places for the private space crafts that are expected on ISS soon.

NASA created the commercial crew program in the hope of ending the United States reliance on Russian Federation.

Williams, Expedition 48’s commander, will head out first, and Rubins will hand off a bag of IDA installation tools before stepping outside the station.

The spacewalk is Rubins’s first. With the IDA secured to the ISS, the two spacewalking astronauts will connect the all-important power and data connectors. The spacewalk is expected to last for six and a half hours as the two astronauts fit the ISS with an worldwide docking adapter. That walk lasted for two hours.

After 15 years as a pure research lab, the International Space Station might be ready for business. Knowledge gained through initial commercial resupply efforts was applied to the new awards, including specific delivery, return and disposal capabilities, as well as an optional accelerated return.

Since NASA decommissioned the space shuttle program in 2011, the agency has been paying Russian Federation millions to take its astronauts into orbit.

NASA will install a “parking space” on the International Space Station (ISS) Friday so private companies, like Boeing and SpaceX, can dock with the station. SpaceX hopes to run a test flight with two astronauts by the end of 2017, while Boeing hopes to do the same in 2018. He has accumulated 19 hours of spacewalk time in his life. NASA will provide most if not all of the initial test pilots.

“We have a new port of call for the new USA commercial crew vehicles”, announced Mission Control commentator Rob Navias. The project is a result of a $3 billion partnership between NASA, Boeing and SpaceX in order to enable astronaut spaceflights to return back to USA soil. The company plans on using water found on asteroids in the form of ice as fuel.