Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Terry Virts (Photo : spaceflightnow.com/2015/)
NASA is set to prepare spacewalks for the United States commercial crew to arrive at the International Space Station for the three upcoming spacewalks.
The first of the three started on Feb. 21, Saturday. The mentioned spacewalks are designed to lay cables all through the front end of the US section to be able to acquire power and communication to two International Docking Adapters slated to arrive later this year, NASA reported.
These two docking ports will be used to receive the US commercial space crafts that will launch from Florida by 2017.
Two NASA astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts, will perform the first spacewalk on Saturday at the International Space Station. This is to prepare and begin outfitting the orbiting lab's docking ports, for the purpose of receiving private space taxis and so that they can be watched live online from people on Earth, according to Space.
"The challenge for the ISS is going to be continuing maturity over multiple decades of the station and what it will do for crew on the path to commercialization," explained Kenny Todd, International Space Station Operations Integration manager. "It's fun, it's exciting and we're looking forward to transforming the station."
SpaceX and Boeing were awarded recently with the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts with NASA to develop transportation for US astronauts coming back and forth the space station.
The sixth resupply mission of SpaceX is to launch to the station before April to bring equipment and supplies to assist around 200 research investigators.
Boeing on the other hand is working together with NASA on its CST-100 space craft that will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
