Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Terry Virts (Photo : spaceflightnow.com/2015/)
The first of the three spacewalks is already set to go on Feb. 21, Saturday. Astronauts Terry Virts and Barry "Butch" Wilmore are the first two who will begin a series of three spacewalks.
The NASA managers have decided on Feb. 19, Thursday, to delay the schedules of the series of spacewalks due to the thorough troubleshooting to make sure of the safety of the critical internal spacesuit components, according to Space Flight Now.
Expedition 42 commanders Wilmore and Virts were thinking of installing more than 760 feet of power and data cables needed for new docking devices that will be used by commercial crew ferry ships created by Space X and Boeing.
The first of the three series of spacewalks was supposed to commence on Friday but was rescheduled on Saturday at around 7:10am (GMT -5); the second spacewalk is scheduled to happen on Wednesday, and the last will be on March 1, NASA reported.
NASA is confident to push through though a bit delayed is due to their engineers' assurance that the spacesuits to be worn by Wilmore and Virts are safe and will not suffer failures due to corrosions.
"We're not in a big hurry out get out the door on these," said a NASA spokesman. "Twenty four hours will just kind of make life easier."
In the coming years or so, about four more series of spacewalks will be completed and the utmost space station reconfiguration since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011. The completion of these spacewalks will require about 900 hours of crew time.
