SEAL Completes His First Space Walk

A U.S. Navy SEAL performed his first walk in space during a maintenance mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) July 22. Cmdr. Chris Cassidy and astronaut David Wolf replaced two of the six original batteries on the ISS and removed multilayer insulation from the Japanese “Kibo” laboratory module to prepare payloads for transfer to an exposed outside section. This walk was the first of three scheduled for Cassidy during this mission. Cassidy and other astronauts with Space Transport System (STS) 127 aboard the shuttle Endeavor blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Endeavor crew’s tasks include swapping crew members for the ISS, replacing the cache of batteries which stores energy from the space station’s solar arrays and installing an outside platform to one end of the laboratory. The platform will serve as a sort of porch for astronauts to conduct experiments outside the protective confines of the space station. The mission is currently scheduled to return to Earth July 31. Cassidy follows former SEAL and now Astronaut Hall of Famer Capt. William Shepard’s footsteps as the second Navy SEAL to launch into space. Shepard is a veteran of four space flights, including command of the Expedition 1 mission in 2000 aboard the ISS. As a SEAL, Shepard served with Underwater Demolition Team 11, Special Boat Team 20 and SEAL Teams 1 and 2. Cassidy completed Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUDS) training in Coronado, Calif., and was the honor graduate for BUDS Class 192. Read the entire article here at Military.com.