News <\/p>\n
December 24, 2013 11:48 AM ET <\/p>\n
Two NASA astronauts are on a rare Christmas Eve spacewalk outside the International Space Station, working to replace a pump that caused a cooling malfunction on the orbiter. <\/p>\n
This is the second spacewalk in four days for the two astronauts. On Saturday, NASA flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins removed a malfunctioning pump from the outside of the space station. <\/p>\n
NASA tweeted this photo of astronaut Mike Hopkins riding on the end of the International Space Station's robotic arm during a spacewalk to replace a malfunctioning coping pump. (Photo: NASA via Twitter) <\/p>\n
With that part of the job complete, Mastracchio and Hopkins are replacing the degraded ammonia pump module on the station's starboard truss with a new one. <\/p>\n
They left the station to begin their efforts at 6:53 a.m. ET today. Ground engineers expect the spacewalk to continue until about 12:30 p.m. <\/p>\n
Three hours into the spacewalk, the two astronauts began to install the 780-pound replacement pump. <\/p>\n
Hopkins, attached to the end of the station's robotic arm, grabbed hold of the new, refrigerator-sized pump and, with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata guiding the robotic arm from inside the station, maneuvered the pump into place. <\/p>\n
The astronauts may go out on another spacewalk on Christmas Day if there is still work to be done to get the station's cooling system running fully again. <\/p>\n
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NASA astronauts on critical Christmas Eve spacewalk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" News December 24, 2013 11:48 AM ET Two NASA astronauts are on a rare Christmas Eve spacewalk outside the International Space Station, working to replace a pump that caused a cooling malfunction on the orbiter. This is the second spacewalk in four days for the two astronauts. On Saturday, NASA flight Engineers Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins removed a malfunctioning pump from the outside of the space station. Continue reading