Spacewalking astronauts fix station’s stuck rail car

NASA astronauts took an unexpected spacewalk on Monday morning to move a stuck railcar before the arrival of a resupply mission.

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Tim Kopra expect to spend more than three hours to latch down the outpost’s Mobile Transporter, a railcar that moves the station’s robotic arm along the length of its backbone-like main truss.

The rail car’s brake was believed to have become stuck unexpectedly last week after it moved about four inches (10 centimetres) from its starting point.

In Mission Control, astronaut Mike Hopkins cautioned them to avoid making accidental contact with the rail vehicle since it wasn’t secured into its usual spot.

NASA Commander Scott Kelly has spent much of 2015 aboard the International Space Station, a world apart from his home, his friends, and his family back on Earth.

“That’s one small step for a Mobile Transporter”, Rob Navias, a commentator for NASA TV, said during the live broadcast of the spacewalk. Officials told that this spacewalk will be done to fix a stuck railcar used by the space station’s robotic arm.

The two astronauts spent the remaining time routing cables along the space station, and retrieving tools that had been stored on the side.

The astronauts aren’t planning to go on another spacewalk until mid-January to make repairs and perform maintenance tasks.

It was the seventh spacewalk of the year. About four hours after launch, Kelly and Kopra started their spacewalk.

Kelly, who is nine months into a one-year mission, will be designated extravehicular activity crew member 1 (EV1) wearing the suit bearing the red stripes, and Kopra will be extravehicular activity crew member 2 (EV2) wearing the plain suit.

The robotic cargo ship, called Progress 62, is scheduled to launch toward the space station from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday at 3:44 a.m. EST (0833 GMT).