Two American astronauts stepped out on their first-ever spacewalks Wednesday for upgrades and maintenance at the orbiting worldwide Space Station, the U.S. space agency NASA said.
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“The major goals of the excursion are to lubricate the snare mechanism on one end of the lab’s robot arm; to install insulation on a high-energy physics experiment; to remove insulation from a stowed electrical distribution box; and to lay power and data cables needed by a new docking mechanism that will be installed later for use by new commercial crew ferry craft”, CBS News wrote.
Mark who is Kelly’s identical twin and a retired astronaut told his brother to pay attention to what he is doing but still try to have a little fun while on the outside.
Earlier in the morning, the spacewalk was held up slightly after Lindgren inadvertently switched on the water flow in his suit too soon.
Mission Control had to make sure the suit would be safe, before they gave the all-clear.
Recently we have an USA astronaut who took a spacewalk and broke a record at the same time.
Kelly is on the verge of breaking the 215-day record for the longest mission in space.
Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui will be assisting both Commander Kelly and Flight Engineer Lindgren from inside the station, and thre spacewalks veteran Tracy Caldwell will be monitoring the events from the ground here on Earth.
Former space station resident Michael Lopez-Alegria has been counting down the days until Kelly surpasses his record of 215 days, eight hours and 22 minutes. It will be 522 days in total by the time he returns to Earth.
President Barack Obama has already talked to Kelly and congratulated him for extraordinary feat.
Another spacewalk is scheduled for the pair on November 6, where they will attempt to restore the port truss ammonia cooling system to its original configuration.
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“Records are made to be broken”, Kelly noted.
