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NASA International Space Station Space Walk

By Julia Sutter
Published on: 10:07 PST, Oct 7, 2014

For the first time in nearly a year, astronauts aboard the International Space Station are on a spacewalk to perform maintenance. They have more effectively stored a failed ammonia cooling pump for future repair and reuse.

According to a report from Space.com, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst are taking to the outside of the international space station to perform maintenance on the orbiting outpost. It is the first spacewalk for each man. The astronauts left the station’s Quest airlock about 8:50 a.m. EDT (1250 GMT).

Gerst and Wiseman will spacewalk to move a broken cooling system pump to a more permanent storage spot on the outpost. The old unit was removed and a spare installed during a pair of spacewalks last year, but the space station repair crew ran out of time to put the failed module into storage for possible future repair and reuse.

They were also tasked on the spacewalk with installing “a new relay system that will provide backup power options to the mobile transporter, which moves the large robotic arm around the out outside of the space station,” according to NASA.

After gathering tools, Wiseman prepared the intended storage site on one of the international space station’s external stowage platforms while Gerst attached himself to the end of the space station’s 58ft (18m) long robotic arm to move the old pump.

With NASA crew-mate Butch Wilmore operating the crane from inside the space station’s cupola module, Gerst carried the module, which on Earth weighs about 850lbs (385kg), over to its storage site.

“Nice work, nice flying Butch,” NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock from Mission Control in Houston radioed to the crew.

After bolting the module into place, Wiseman and Gerst planned to tackle some electrical work to provide an alternative power source for equipment on the robot arm’s mobile base.

They also will replace a light in a television camera outside the Destiny space station laboratory module.

A second outing by Wiseman and Wilmore is scheduled for 15 October to replace a failed component in a voltage regulator that is part of the space station’s solar power system.

The device failed in May, taking down one of the space station’s eight power channels.

The Guardian reports that NASA spacewalks had been on hold except for critical tasks like the replacing the cooling pump while engineers evaluated the US spacesuits. Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano nearly drowned when his helmet filled with water during a spacewalk in July 2013.

The international space station is a $100 billion science laboratory owned by 15 nations. It flies about 260 miles (418 km) above Earth.

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