Off the wire
• 1st LD Writethru: Zambia opposition petitions presidential election results  • Peru's southern region of Arequipa hit by 5.2-magnitude earthquake  • UNICEF calls for urgent action to help over 100,000 children trapped in war-torn Aleppo  • Results of water polo women at Rio Olympics  • U.S. dollar rises against other major currencies  • Morocco triples trade with U.S. to 2.5 billion USD in decade  • Zambia opposition petitions presidential election results  • Morocco joins hands with UAE to fight climate change  • Result of water polo women's gold medal match at Rio Olympics  • Results of women's boxing women's light (57-60kg) at Rio Olympics  
You are here: 　 Home

U.S. spacewalkers successfully install commercial crew port at space station

Xinhua, August 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

Two U.S. astronauts on Friday ventured out of the International Space Station and successfully installed the first of two crucial docking ports that will enable future arrivals of American commercial crew spacecraft.

Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins from the U.S. space agency NASA concluded their spacewalk at 2:02 p.m. EDT (1802 GMT) after spending nearly six hours installing the ring-like equipment, known as an international docking adapter (IDA).

It's "a significant milestone in NASA's work to return crew launches to U.S. soil," the agency said in a statement.

Since NASA retired its space shuttle program in 2011, the only vehicle to ferry humans to the space station is Russia's Soyuz spacecraft.

NASA created the commercial crew program in the hope of ending the U.S. reliance on Russia. It has awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to build commercial spaceships, with their first flights slated for 2017.

The IDA arrived at the space station July 20 on a SpaceX Dragon cargo resupply spacecraft. It's a ring weighing more than 1,000 pounds (454 kg) that will provide a standardized connection point for Boeing and SpaceX crew spacecraft to automatically dock with the station.

Another IDA was expected to be launched in 2018.

This is the fourth spacewalk in Williams' career and the first for Rubins. It is the 194th spacewalk for the space station. Endit