ISS Astronauts On Spacewalk

Spacewalks are fantastic to watch, but they’re much riskier for the astronauts, compared to the relative safety of being inside the ISS.

It stalled while it was moving around the outside of the station, and experts believe it could be due to a stuck brake handle.

Two US astronauts floated outside the International Space Station on Monday in a hastily planned spacewalk to move a stuck rail vehicle before a Russian cargo ship reaches the outpost on Wednesday, NASA said.

Station managers ordered the spacewalk to latch down the transporter as a cautionary measure in advance of the scheduled docking of the new unpiloted ISS Progress 62 cargo ship on Wednesday that will link up to the Pirs Docking Compartment.

With their primary task completed, Kelly and Kopra split up to work on separate tasks of routing cables along the space station.

The spacewalk was ordered to ensure that the Mobile Transporter is latched securely before the Progress docks at the station.

The rail auto is a part of the regular mobile transport system used to transport equipment, people and big robot arm of the station in space and outside the orbiting lab. The brake jammed unexpectedly last week and the need for the spacewalk arose when the Mission Control in Houston failed to fix the problem using robotic techniques. It will be the 191st spacewalk in support of station assembly and maintenance and the seventh spacewalk of the year by station crew members.

A robotic arm that works on the outside of the International Space Station got a hand today from two astronauts.

Kelly and Kornienko are in the midst of a yearlong space mission that will end in March. Kopra arrived Tuesday, launching from Kazakhstan with Russian and British colleagues.