This spacewalk, similar to a single that took spot very last Friday, will aim on replacing batteries for a person of the energy channels on the much starboard truss of the station. Because the astronauts completed some of the tasks for this spacewalk last 7 days, they will also focus on jobs that ended up scheduled for later spacewalks, route electricity and ethernet cables, and work other preparations for upcoming electric power process upgrades.

These cables will give greater views on long run spacewalks, in accordance to NASA.

These energy program upgrades, even so, are almost nothing like replacing batteries in your distant. The new batteries each and every have a mass of 428 lbs.

For this 2nd spacewalk, Cassidy will be crew member I and wearing a spacesuit demonstrating purple stripes, when Behnken will provide as crew member II in a go well with with no stripes. Hurley and Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner will enable Cassidy and Behnken into their spacesuits. Hurley will work the station’s robotic arm to help the astronauts exterior the station.

The battery replacements, which will have a 20-year life time, will place the station in a considerably much better configuration for the lengthy time period, claimed Kenneth Todd, deputy International Area Station application manager, for the duration of a NASA press meeting last 7 days.

Behnken lately reviewed the spacewalk, and why it’s essential to change the batteries, for the duration of a phone to the place station from CNN Innovation and House Reporter Rachel Crane.

“When the space station is in the solar, it’s collecting strength and it demands to keep for when it truly is in the dim,” he explained. “And so individuals batteries, as they are cycled time and time once more, they have on down and want to be changed. And so periodically that upkeep is required.”

Behnken claimed he was seeking forward to yet another spacewalk expertise.

“I actually look forward to the sights of the Earth when we get a absolutely free minute,” he reported. “I believe each individual astronaut, when they go out on their very first spacewalk, they’re actually concentrated on attempting to get all the functions attained and do a excellent position so that they can most likely get a possibility to do an additional a single if the opportunity provides alone.

“But soon after you’ve got done a few and know what to hope as you go as a result of it, it is vital to, you know, choose some mental images, some psychological visuals, or recall what it was like to be outside.”