Two astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station early Thursday and performed what amounted to hand transplant surgery on the lab’s Canadian-built robot arm, removing a crippled grapple fixture on one end of the space crane and replacing it with an on-board spare.
Astronauts Randy Bresnik and Mark Vande Hei headed outside the International Space Station Thursday on a spacewalk to replace one end of the lab’s Canadian-built robotic arm, a changeout that engineers say will restore the device to full capability.
The International Space Station’s robotic arm, under the control of engineers on Earth, extracted an experimental inflatable habitat from the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship Saturday and attached it to the orbiting complex.
Ground controllers powered up the International Space Station’s robotic arm and repositioned a storage module Wednesday to give visiting cargo delivery vehicles a second parking port at the complex.