The astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) may finally get to breathe some fresh air from the outside of their compartments. The American space agency, NASA has decided to install a new dock to the ISS, which will give astronauts aboard a chance to take a cosmic stroll.
The installation is supposed to take place on Friday. According to reports, the astronauts aboard ISS, Kate Rubins and Jeff Williams have started to prepare themselves for a six-hour spacewalk.
Even though the spacewalk may not seem like a leisure walk at all, at least the astronauts would get to stretch their legs in no gravity zone. The two astronauts would spend a significant amount of time of their spacewalk in installing the international docking adapter (IDA). The space agency is planning to stream a live telecast of the installation at 6:30AM ET.
The IDA is an important part of the Commercial Crew Program launched by NASA. As a part of this program, the private companies have been asked to create a sough of "space taxis" for the space agency. The taxis would help transport NASA's astronauts to and from the ISS.
For the IDA, private company SpaceX is already creating a "Crew Dragon," which is a crewed version of its own Dragon cargo. Another space company called Boeing is building a crew capsule called CST-100 Starliner.
The two innovations in the form of crew capsules are expected to be ready by 2017 and tested in the later half of the same year or in early 2018. The capsules would carry astronauts to the ISS as a part of the initial testing. Once the capsule arrives at the ISS, it would dock with the IDA.
Even though the IDA dock arrived at the ISS on July 20, it would be freed by the astronauts on August 17, Wednesday. The job would be performed by the robotic arm of the ISS, which will remove the IDA from the trunk in which it arrived and place the adapter at some distance from the point where it would be finally attached.
On August 19, the astronauts would finally moonwalk and install the dock in the morning. Williams and Rubins would hook up the IDA to its port at around 8:05AM ET.
