NASA astronauts go on spacewalk to upgrade station batteries, share pictures of Earth

NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy and Bob Behnken went outside the International Space Station on July 1 for their second spacewalk in less than a week. The duo swapped station batteries ahead of the Independence Day weekend to upgrade power systems on the station, replacing ageing nickel-hydrogen (NiH2) batteries with new lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries.

They have two more spacewalks planned later in July and the battery upgrades are expected to continue on future spacewalks. The target dates and time for the next upgrades will be announced once mission planners assess the scope of the remaining work to be done. NASA shared the video on its official Twitter account in which the duo can be seen working on the upgrade.

"You have control of the battery. I do. I'm in a good spot," one of the astronauts can be heard saying in the video.

'Pretty spectacular'

Chris Cassidy also shared the pictures from ISS, showing the spectacular view below his feet. Behnken shared the image of a sunset, saying they set the camera to automatically take shots every few seconds during the spacewalks. 

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In May, Behnken flew in the Dragon Crew spacecraft along with another NASA astronaut Doug Hurley, riding off the capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket from the launch pad which was used by the Apollo Moon missions nearly half a century ago. The Crew Dragon capsule blasted off from Kennedy Space Center's historic Launch Pad 39A on May 30 at 3:22pm EDT to the International Space Station from the American turf for the first time in nine years.

During a live conference from the ISS, the astronauts shared their first-hand experience of the commercial spacecraft. Behnken had also talked about the difference in the experience with staging between the space shuttle and the Dragon since they didn’t shut down the main engine on the space shuttle.

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