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Spacewalking astronauts wrap up battery improvements

Cape Canaveral, Fla. — A pair of spacewalking astronauts successfully wrapped up battery improvements outside the International Space Station on Monday, completing a job begun last fall.

NASA’s Jessica Meir and Christina Koch installed the last new battery in a set of six launched to the orbiting lab in September.

They also removed two old batteries in their second spacewalk in under a week to upgrade the station’s solar power grid.

This marked the women’s third spacewalk together.

They conducted the world’s first all-female spacewalk last October, replacing a failed charging device that bumped the battery replacements into this year.

The women had just completed the battery work when Koch inadvertently deployed the hand controller on her emergency jet pack, called a Safer.

Meir hurried over to get the controller back in its proper place.

Koch called her “my hero.” Mission Control cautioned that, given the current set-up, “we would not count on Christina’s Safer” in an emergency.

NASA’s spacewalking astronauts always wear small Safer jet packs in case they become untethered from the station and float away.

It’s never been needed. During last Wednesday’s spacewalk, Koch’s helmet lights and camera came loose.

She later found a faulty latch in the helmet assembly and replaced it before floating out Monday.

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