The International Space Station now has a door that will let crews float in from the commercial space taxis that SpaceX and Boeing are building, thanks to a almost six-hour spacewalk.
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This image provided by NASA shows American astronauts Jeffrey Williams, left, and Kate Rubins taking a spacewalk to hook up a docking port outside the International Space Station on Friday, Aug. 19, 2016.
The ring will be moved closer Friday morning, and Williams and Rubins will finish the job of attaching it to a port last used by the shuttle Atlantis five years ago.
NASA originally hoped to get the first IDA installed previous year, but the initial unit was destroyed when the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying it to space suffered a catastrophic failure.
Americans have not rocketed into orbit from their home turf since Nasa’s last shuttle flight in 2011.
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. If all goes well, new commercial spacecraft being built by Boeing and SpaceX will dock there starting with test flights next year.
Until then, Russian Federation will keep providing all the rides – at a hefty price for United States taxpayers.
They also had to prove that their products or services would be able to compete in a commercial market in LEO even after the ISS complete its research mission. NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Bill Hill announced Thursday that the space agency is planning to hand over control of the ISS to a private company by the mid-2020s.
Rubins and Williams, who share the ISS with a Japanese astronaut and three Russian cosmonauts, spent two hours tying down the adaptor, and robotic machinery made the attachment permanent. Williams will conduct one more spacewalk with Rubins on September 1 to retract a radiator. Commercial crew flights from Florida’s Space Coast to the International Space Station will restore America’s human launch capability and increase the time USA crews can dedicate to scientific research, which is helping prepare astronauts for deep space missions, including the journey to Mars.
The spacewalk was the fourth for Williams, a veteran astronaut who on Wednesday will surpass U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly s record for the most cumulative days in space for an American.
“Come on out”, he urged Ms Rubins.
Rubins is now part of an exclusive sorority: She is only the 11th American woman to conduct a spacewalk and the 12th woman in the world. 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.
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In the meantime, the IDA installed Friday will suffice for initial test flights starting next year.
