By Marcia Dunn The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Spacewalking astronauts are tackling battery and cable work outside the International Space Station.
It’s the third spacewalk in just 2 1/2 weeks for the station crew.
NASA astronaut Anne McClain and Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques got an early start Monday morning. They need to complete battery swap-outs that began last month and lay cable.
The new cabling will provide a backup power circuit for the station’s Canadian-made robot arm and expand wireless communications. The battery work involves re-installing two old batteries. One of the six new lithium-ion batteries doesn’t work, and so the outdated pair made of nickel hydrogen need to go back into the slot.
NASA says it will send up another new battery.
