This was the 237th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998.
NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover took a space walk Saturday outside the International Space Station to upgrade the lab’s communications and cooling systems. The walk, which took place about 250 miles above earth, lasted nearly seven hours. Struggling with balky electrical connectors, Hopkins managed to plug in and secure three of four thick power and data cables needed by a European experiment platform during a challenging spacewalk, leaving one cable for additional troubleshooting. Hopkins and crewmate Victor Glover also vented residual ammonia coolant from two jumpers used to service the station’s thermal control system, stowing the hoses in different locations for future use if needed. One jumper spewed more ammonia ice crystals than expected when it was vented to space, but the astronauts said their suits did not appear to be contaminated with any flakes that could be brought back into the station. Floating in the Quest airlock, Hopkins and Glover began Saturday’s excursion when they switched their spacesuits to battery power at 8:14 a.m. EST, kicking off the 237th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998. The first task on the agenda was to safely vent the two ammonia jumpers, used for loading coolant in the station’s thermal control system and for helping track down leaks. The jumpers were located on the far left end of the lab’s solar power truss, a segment known as port 6, or P6. After confirming no contamination with ammonia ice crystals, the spacewalkers stowed one jumper on the P6 segment for any future troubleshooting that might be needed on that side of the station while the other was mounted outside the airlock for use if needed later on the right side.
