Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.--Spacewalking astronauts routed more than
300 feet of cable outside the international space station Saturday,
the first of three spacewalks planned for NASA astronauts Butch
Wilmore and Terry Virts over the coming week.
Altogether, Mr. Wilmore and Mr. Virts have 764 feet of cable to
run outside the space station. They got off to a strong start
Saturday, rigging eight power and data lines, or about 340 feet,
during a 6 1/2 -hour spacewalk. The longest single stretch was 43
feet.
NASA considers this the most complicated cable-routing job in
the 16-year history of the space station. Equally difficult will be
running cable on the inside of the complex. The extensive rewiring
is needed to prepare for NASA's next phase 260 miles up: the 2017
arrival of the first commercial spacecraft capable of transporting
astronauts to the orbiting lab.
NASA is paying Boeing Co. and SpaceX to build the capsules and
fly them from Cape Canaveral, Fla., which hasn't seen a manned
launch since the shuttles retired in 2011. Instead, Russia is doing
all the taxi work--for a steep price.
The first of two docking ports for the Boeing and SpaceX
vessels, still under development, is due to arrive in June. Even
more spacewalks will be needed to set everything up.
There were so many cables that NASA color-coded them.
Mission Control left two cables--or about 24 feet worth--for the
next spacewalk, coming up Wednesday. Four hundred feet of
additional cable will be installed March 1 on spacewalk No. 3.
Spacesuit concerns stalled the work by a day, as NASA wanted to
make certain the suits worn by Mr. Wilmore and Mr. Virts had
reliable fan and pump assemblies. Two other fan-pump units failed
aboard the space station in recent months and were returned to
Earth earlier this month for analysis. Corrosion was discovered,
the result of water intrusion from testing.
Their suits appeared to work fine Saturday.
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