NASA astronauts take spacewalk to retrofit space station plumbing and tackle other strange tasks
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A pair of NASA astronauts went out into space on Saturday to rearrange the plumbing of a space station, careful to avoid the cooling of toxic ammonia that still lies in the lines.
The hose work should have been completed at a spacewalk outside the International Space Station a week ago, but was put off when a power upgrade took longer than expected.
Wanting to upgrade the station before the astronauts return home in the spring, Mission Control ordered the bonus spacecraft for Victor Glover and Mike Hopkins. They came together for backbone space missions 1 1/2 months ago and were happy to put chalk on another one.
“Have some fun out there and stay safe,” Mission Control radioed as the spacewalk finally went on, almost an hour late.
Before going out, the astronauts had to put the communication caps under their helmets so that they could hear properly. “I’ve heard you loud and clear,” Hopkins said once the new cap was on his head.
Glover and Hopkins – launched last November on SpaceX – had to replace a pair of ammonia jumper cables that were added years ago after a leak in the space station’s outer cooling system.
NASA warned astronauts to use “extra surveillance” to prevent ammonia from accessing their space resources and to monitor their return inside. The astronauts had long machines to cool the pipes and were advised to stay clear of cigarettes.
Glover and Hopkins had to move one of the pipes to a more central location near NASA’s lap, in case it was needed on the other end of the station.
Other weird jobs on Saturday included: replacing an antenna for helmet cameras, recirculating ethernet cables, tightening connections on a European test platform, and inserting a metal ring on the thermal cover hatch.
It was the fifth spaceflight – and, by necessity, the last – for this US-Russian-Japanese team of seven.
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