NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy and Bob Behnken will exit the orbital lab on July 1 to continue replacing batteries that store and distribute power collected from the solar arrays. They will work on the outer portion of the truss structure, or the Starboard-6 truss, disconnecting and removing the old nickel hydrogen batteries. Following that, new lithium-ion batteries will be installed in their place and powered up by mission controllers on the ground.
The International Space Station (ISS) is a space station, or a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit. Its first component was launched into orbit in 1998, with the first long-term residents arriving in November 2000. It has been inhabited continuously since that date. The last pressurised module was fitted in 2011, and an experimental inflatable space habitat was added …