Spacewalkers' Second Attempt to Fix Power Unit of Space Station

The astronauts aboard the International Space Station are trying to complete its unsuccessful task again during a spacewalk on Wednesday.

This task will be taken over the Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams and the Japanese spaceflier Akihiko Hoshide. These two will proceed out of the space station on Sept 5 at 11.15 UTC.,  to install a spare Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU), the power box that is responsible for relaying power from the space station's solar panels to systems onboard the orbiting outpost.

Last Thursday the duo spent nearly eight hours and 17 minutes in fixing the exterior of the station that remained incomplete as they were unable to fix a bolt in the MBSU. With several attempts that resulted in a failure the astronauts were forced to use a tether to temporarily tie the MBSU.

redOrbit quoted a statement of NASA saying, " following a thorough review of preparations, the ISS mission management team including all international partners, agreed to press ahead for the follow up spacewalk."

Ever since the mission remained incomplete Thursday, the mission managers have been working to detect the prime reason for the failure.

"The most probable cause is likely a combination of a slight misalignment in the positioning of the spare unit for its installation prior to bolting and possible damage to the threads of the receptacle posts on the S-zero truss to which the MBSU must be bolted in place," NASA officials were quoted in Space.com

According to the NASA officials, "If the power unit cannot be installed then the astronauts may have to bring the box inside for more analysis."

NASA Television will broadcast the proceedings live on NASA Television beginning at 6 a.m. ET.