Two US astronauts wearing what NASA assured are "healthy" spacesuits began a spacewalk on Saturday to lay cable outside the International Space Station, after an equipment failure briefly delayed the mission.
The spacewalk officially began at 7:45 am, local time, when Barry "Butch" Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts placed their suits on internal battery power, NASA said.
Moments later, the pair - each carrying two suitcase-like bags of cable and gear - floated outside the airlock to begin the first of several spacewalks aimed at preparing the orbiting outpost for the arrival of US commercial crew capsules, bringing astronauts to low-Earth orbit in the coming years.
The breakdown in the fan pump separator - which helps control the suit's temperature - in two of the American spacesuits was part of the same system that failed in 2013 when water flooded the helmet of a spacewalking Italian astronaut, nearly drowning him.
A replacement part that was on board the space station was installed in Virts' suit and a new spacesuit was shipped to the space station for Wilmore.
"All suit systems are reported to be in excellent condition," Navias said.
The duo's next spacewalk is set for Wednesday, followed by another on Sunday, with the goal of routing a total of 364 feet of cable.
These and several more outings in the coming months are designed to prepare the station and the robotic arm for a pair of international docking adapters (IDAs), which will be delivered later this year.
Boeing has said it hopes to send an astronaut and pilot for the first time in late 2017 to the International Space Station, aboard its crew capsule called CST-100.
SpaceX is aiming to follow soon after with its Dragon V2 crew capsule, modeled on the Dragon cargo carrier that is currently making trips back and forth to space carrying supplies, food and material for science experiments.
NASA lost its ability to send astronauts to space when it closed the 30-year space shuttle program in 2011.
The world's astronauts must now rely on Russia's Soyuz capsules for transport to low-Earth orbit, at a cost of about $70 million per seat.
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