Space station crew members have conducted 194 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory. Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 1,210 hours and 46 minutes working outside the station.
NASA astronauts Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins are due to work outside the International Space Station on Aug. 19 for 6.5 hours. The duo will install the first of two International Docking Adapters that future Commercial Crew vehicles being developed by Boeing and SpaceX will use to dock to the space station -- a significant milestone in NASA’s work to return crew launches to U.S. soil.
The docking adapter arrived to the space station July 20 on a SpaceX Dragon cargo resupply spacecraft. On Wednesday, ground controllers used the Canadarm2 robotic arm, and its attached “Dextre” Special Dexterous Manipulator, to extract the IDA from the trunk of Dragon and position it just 2 feet away from Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 located on the forward end of the Harmony module.
Once the IDA is moved to a surface to surface contact with the PMA, Williams and Rubins will begin work to hook up tethers in advance of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi sending commands to close the hooks between the two docking ports. Once the hooks are closed, Williams and Rubins will press ahead to mate power and data connectors for future use of the IDA.
Williams is wearing the spacesuit with a red stripe. Rubins is wearing the spacesuit with the white stripe. This is the fourth spacewalk in Williams’ career and the first for Rubins. It is the 194th spacewalk for the space station
