Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques is taking his first spacewalk this morning. Saint-Jacques and U.S. astronaut Anne McClain tackled battery and cable work outside the International Space Station on Monday. It was the third spacewalk in just 2½ weeks for the space station crew. Today’s walk is expected to last 6½ hours.
The astronauts hustled through their part in battery swap-outs that began last month. “All right, you rock,” Mission Control radioed. Next up: laying cable outside the 250-mile-high outpost to provide a backup power circuit for the station’s Canadarm2 and expand wireless communications.