But any spacewalk, or extravehicular activity, entails risks, and those had to be carefully balanced against the potential for harm posed by the insulating blanket.
The NASA spacewalk, or Extravehicular Activity (EVA), is scheduled to begin at 8 15 a.m. EDT (1215 GMT) on Aug. 30.
Astronauts in every previous spacewalk, or extra-vehicular activity, had been attached to the spacecraft by a long cable.
The crew of EO-19 conducted their first Extra-vehicular activity, or spacewalk, on July 14.
At a distance of about 170000 nautical miles from Earth, Mattingly performed a "deep-space" extra-vehicular activity, or spacewalk, during which he retrieved several film cassettes from the CSM's SIM bay.
Exactly 52 years ago this Saturday, Leonov and mission commander Pavel Belyayev blasted into space aboard the Soviet spacecraft Voskhod ("Sunrise") 2. Several crews, both Russian and American, had already orbited Earth, so Voskhod 2 had been tasked with pushing the boundaries of human spaceflight to the next level a spacewalk, or EVA (extravehicular activity).
The astronauts, whose task it is to repair a critical cooling system necessary for keeping the outpost fully powered, have an additional concern to the "normal" challenges of a quickly-planned extra-vehicular activity (EVA, or spacewalk).
The original activities planned for the spacewalk were for construction of the International Space Station.
(The term "EVA" stands for "extra-vehicular activity," a.k.a. a spacewalk).
In an afternoon briefing, mission managers applauded the success of the spacewalk — one of a series of tightly choreographed activities over the next few days for this shuttle mission and the station crew afterward.
