MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Two astronauts are taking a spacewalk 260 miles up. They’re performing NASA’s first routine maintenance outside the International Space Station in more than a year.
American astronaut Reid Wiseman and German spaceman Alexander Gerst ventured out Tuesday morning to move a broken pump into its proper storage location.
U.S.-based spacewalks were curtailed in July 2013 after an Italian astronaut nearly drowned because of a flooded helmet. NASA solved the problem with the suit’s water-cooling system. Then concern arose over the spacesuit batteries. New batteries arrived late last month.
The 780-pound pump on the move Tuesday is the size of a double-door refrigerator. It was placed in temporary storage during urgent spacewalking repairs to the station’s ammonia-cooling system last December.
This is the first spacewalk ever for Wiseman and Gerst.