Astronauts install new door on spacewalk

The installation will give NASA an independent access to the ISS for the first time since the withdrawal of its fleet of space shuttles in 2011.

But their crew capsules can not dock without this new-style parking spot, which replaces the now obsolete shuttle set-up and is meant to be internationally compatible. NASA’s investments in the private cargo and crew transport programs made SpaceX possible, setting the stage for a new commercial race to space.

The adaptors will work with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, two spaceships under construction that are planned to ferry astronauts to the space station.

California-based SpaceX, owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, plans to begin test flights of its new passenger Dragon capsule to the station in 2017.

Until then, Russian Federation will keep providing all the rides – at a hefty price for USA taxpayers.

NASA astronauts are going for a walk in space this week to install a new parking spot on the International Space Station, but in just a few years, the agency plans to abandon the station.

ISS operations integration manager Kenneth Todd called the installation a “very significant milestone on the path to establishing commercial crew capability”.

NASA is reportedly considering turning over the International Space Station (ISS) to a private company, and while this may not happen immediately, it is expected to take place less than a decade from now, sometime in the mid-2020s.

The second addition of the docking adaptor will be worked upon by 2018. The passenger capsule will launch on SpaceX’s Falcon rocket from the former shuttle site at Kennedy in Florida and fall into the Atlantic Ocean on its return. After that, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi will send commands to close the hooks between the two docking ports. Another one – cobbled together from spare parts – should fly up in about a year.

The docking port arrived at the station earlier this summer, thanks to SpaceX.

“Great view”, said Rubins, who is making her first spacewalk.

While the possible handover is still in its infancy, there is already one entity that now manages some activities aboard the ISS for NASA – the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS).

Mr Williams will conduct one more spacewalk with Ms Rubins on September 1 to retract a radiator.

The spacewalk was the fourth for Williams, a veteran astronaut who on Wednesday will surpass United States astronaut Scott Kelly’s record for the most cumulative days in space for an American. “Come on out”, he urged Rubins.