NASA flight director discusses curtailed spacewalk

After a spacesuit sizing problem prevented an all-female spacewalk earlier this year, astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir will get a chance to make history Oct. 21 when they venture outside the International Space Station in the fourth of five excursions to install a new set of solar array batteries, NASA managers announced Friday.

NASA is gearing up for an intense few weeks of work aboard the International Space Station, staging three spacewalks, moving a docking port from one module to another to support commercial crew ferry ships and capturing an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship carrying nearly 4 tons of equipment and supplies.

Space station commander Scott Kelly and newly-arrived flight engineer Tim Kopra ventured outside the lab complex Monday and freed up a stalled robot arm-carrying transporter so it could be moved to a nearby anchor point and locked down, clearing the way for a Russian Progress supply ship to dock Wednesday.