October is spacewalk month for astronauts aboard the space station. By the end of the month, crew members will have completed a total of five spacewalks. Most of their time outside will be spent making upgrades to the space station's power system.

The first of the five trips occurred over the weekend. Expedition 61 flight engineers Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan spent more than seven hours outside the International Space Station on Sunday.

"The two NASA astronauts began the replacement of nickel-hydrogen batteries with newer, more powerful lithium-ion batteries on the far end of the station's port truss," according to a NASA news release.

The new lithium-ion batteries are lighter and more energy efficient than than the old nickel-hydrogen batteries. Over the last several spacewalks, astronauts have worked to remove the old batteries and install the new ones.

Morgan and Koch will continue their battery swap work later this week, on Oct. 11. The spacewalk will be broadcast live on NASA TV.

Additional spacewalks are scheduled for Oct. 16, 21 and 25.

Astronauts conducted a similar battery swap in 2017. As more new batteries arrive and are installed, the old batteries will get shipped back to Earth for proper disposal.

Earlier this year, astronauts prepared the truss for the several new batteries, the installation of which is expected to be completed by the end of the month. Sunday's spacewalk was the first of five scheduled for October.

!function(n){if(!window.cnx){window.cnx={},window.cnx.cmd=[];var t=n.createElement('iframe');t.display='none',t.onload=function(){var n=t.contentWindow.document;c=n.createElement('script'),c.src='//cd.connatix.com/connatix.player.js',c.setAttribute('async','1'),c.setAttribute('type','text/javascript'),n.body.appendChild(c)},n.head.appendChild(t)}}(document);

cnx.cmd.push(function() {

cnx({

playerId: '56098f0f-3e22-41b7-8dd5-b37443d7c53d'

, mediaId: '40576388-0358-4291-874f-89c705b233b9'

}).render('dc4af7523a4b45c5a91cb62f60e45102');

});

Related Links
Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

First Arab on ISS returns to Earth
Almaty, Kazakhstan (AFP) Oct 3, 2019
A three-man crew including an Emirati who became the first Arab to reach the International Space Station returned to Earth safely on Thursday and were in good shape, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said. Hazzaa al-Mansoori of the United Arab Emirates touched down in the Kazakh steppes at 1059 GMT along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, who both survived a failed launch to the ISS last year. "The crew that returned to Earth is feeling well," Roscosmos said ... read more