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ISS crew working fast to reconfigure docking, electrical systems
by Brooks Hays
Washington (UPI) Oct 15, 2014


US astronauts conduct spacewalk to repair ISS
Washington (AFP) Oct 15, 2014 - A pair of American astronauts stepped outside the International Space Station Wednesday for a spacewalk to do repairs and upkeep at the orbiting outpost, NASA said.

Reid Wiseman and Barry "Butch" Wilmore finished their spacewalk after six hours and 34 minutes, right on schedule, the US space agency said.

Their first task was to replace a suitcase-sized power regulator for a solar array that had failed in May.

The operation required some careful coordination with the time when the space station passed under Earth's shadow, so that electricity was not being generated by the solar array.

Then, the astronauts set to their next task of moving equipment to make space for international docking adapters scheduled to be delivered to the complex in 2015.

These "will configure the station for future commercial crew vehicles and provide an additional berthing port for commercial cargo spacecraft," NASA said.

They aso replaced an external TV camera that had lost its zoom capability, and replaced it with a new one.

Wednesday's spacewalk was the 183rd at the International Space Station, but was Wilmore's first.

It was the second outing for Wiseman, who along with flight engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency completed a six-hour spacewalk on October 7.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore donned spacesuits and stepped outside the International Space Station on Wednesday morning to repair a broken component in one of the eight solar power channels that provide the station's NASA-built grid with electricity.

It was Wiseman's second spacewalk -- or what those in the business call extra-vehicular activity (EVA) -- and it was Wilmore's first. Their maintenance and repair duties were set to keep the two astronauts out of station for nearly 6 1/2 hours.

In addition to repairing the solar panel component, the two astronauts will begin prepping for the rearrangement of the station's docking systems -- a reorganization that will require some of the station's power circuits to be rewired.

"We're going to be doing the things we need to do on these EVAs to prep for moving some modules around," Kenny Todd, manager of space station integration operations back on Earth, said in a press conference preceding the mission. "All that is in preparation for being able to support future [commercial] crewed vehicles coming to station.

"We're trying to get out in front of that. We'll be prepping for moving modules; we'll be installing a new docking adapter system," Todd said. "All of that will be happening throughout the next several months onboard the station."

Wednesday's spacewalk is the 183rd time astronauts have stepped outside to work on the space station since it launched in 1998. The next crew of ISS astronauts will be making several extra spacewalks in the new year.

These trips will continue the work of Wiseman and Wilmore in readying ISS for future dockings by commercial spacecraft from Boeing and SpaceX. Those spacecraft will be used to ferry NASA's astronauts to and from the space station as soon as 2017.

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ISS Crew Relations Not Affected by Ukrainian Conflict
Zvyozdny Gorodok (RIA Novosti) Oct 15, 2014
The situation in Ukraine has not affected relations between crew members at the International Space Station (ISS), cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev said Friday. "In spite of politics, we have not argued and we feel like a single entity, a single nation that inhabits the Earth," Artemyev, who returned from the ISS about a month ago, told reporters at the Cosmonaut Training Center in Zvyozdny Gorodok ... read more


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