Videos: ISS astronauts on spacewalk to work on robotic arms

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai are currently on an EVA outside the International Space Station. They are re-positioning two robotic arm grappling mechanisms, which were repaired during spacewalks late last year. The astronauts can be watched live on NASA TV:

This animation shows the tasks they are undertaking:

From the caption:

The first task for spacewalkers Mark Vande Hei and Norishige Kanai is to move a Latching End Effector (LEE), or hand, for the Canadian-built robotic arm, Canadarm2, from a payload attachment on the station’s Mobile Base System rail car to the Quest airlock. This LEE was replaced during an Expedition 53 spacewalk in October 2017 and will be returned to Earth to be refurbished and relaunched to the orbiting laboratory as a spare.

Once they have completed that activity, they will move an aging, but functional, LEE that was detached from the arm during a Jan. 23 spacewalk and move it from its temporary storage outside the airlock to a long-term storage location on the Mobile Base System, which is used to move the arm and astronauts along the station’s truss structure.

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