U.S. astronauts conduct spacewalk to install commercial crew port

By Philippine News Agency/Xinhua WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 — Two U.S. astronauts on Friday ventured out of the International Space Station to install the first of two crucial docking ports that will enable future arrivals of American commercial crew spacecraft. Photo courtesy of AllPosters.com Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins from the U.S. space agency NASA started their spacewalk at 8:04 a.m. EDT (1204 GMT) and planned to spend some six and a half hours installing the ring-like equipment, known as an international docking adapter (IDA). It’s “a significant milestone in NASA’s work to return crew launches to U.S. soil,” the agency said in a statement. Since NASA retired its space shuttle program in 2011, the only vehicle to ferry humans to the space station is Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. NASA created the commercial crew program in the hope of ending the U.S. reliance on Russia. It has awarded contracts to Boeing and [...]