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[b]Station astronauts complete first of two July spacewalks[/b] Two Expedition 36 astronauts wrapped up a successful 6-hour, 7-minute spacewalk at 1:09 p.m. CDT (1809 GMT) on Tuesday (July 9), completing the first of two excursions this month to prepare the International Space Station for a new Russian module and perform additional installations on the station's backbone. Flight engineers Chris Cassidy of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency began the spacewalk at 7:02 a.m. CDT (1202 GMT) as they switched their spacesuits to battery power. After the two spacewalkers exited the hatch, Cassidy moved to the top of the Z1 truss to remove and replace a Space-to-Ground Transmitter Receiver Controller. In parallel to this, Parmitano headed out to the Express Logistics Carrier-2 on the starboard truss segment and retrieved two experiments that were part of the Materials International Space Station Experiment-8, or MISSE-8. While he was out on the on the starboard truss, Parmitano also photographed the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 (AMS-02) to provide the research team a visual assessment of the condition of this state-of-the-art particle physics detector. Cassidy meanwhile routed power cables to support the addition of the new Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module scheduled to arrive at the station later this year. Cassidy routed cables from the Unity node to the interface between the Pressurized Mating Adapter-1 and the Zarya module. The two spacewalkers teamed back up to remove two Radiator Grapple Bars (RGBs) and install one on the port side truss and the other on the starboard side so they will be more strategically located. While riding at the end of the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm under the control of flight engineer Karen Nyberg, Parmitano transported the RGBs to the worksites where Cassidy bolted them down. As Parmitano rode the arm back from the starboard side to port, he used that opportunity to remove a failed camera assembly. With those tasks complete and the RGBs installed, Cassidy began the installation of two Z1 truss Y-bypass jumpers to provide power redundancy and stability for critical station components. Working briskly ahead of the planned timeline, Parmitano installed a multi-layer insulation cover to protect the docking interface of Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 mounted to the Harmony module. The two spacewalkers then moved on to a couple of get-ahead tasks — including the initial routing of cables from the Zarya module to Pressurized Mating Adapter-1 — before moving back into the Quest airlock to end the spacewalk. With the completion of his fifth career spacewalk, Cassidy now has a total of 29 hours, 42 minutes of total spacewalking time to his credit. It was the first spacewalk for Parmitano and the first for an Italian. Cassidy and Parmitano are slated to head back out the Quest airlock on July 16 for another spacewalk to complete the Z1 Y-bypass jumper installation and route additional cables. Tuesday's spacewalk was the 170th in support of station assembly and maintenance, totaling 1,073 hours, 50 minutes.
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