Mission Control has asked the crew to momentarily pause in performing some spacewalk tasks while the command and control computer transitions from the primary computer to a backup computer. The cause of the transition is unknown. The transition caused a loss of power to some of the systems, such as rack power switches and video from the robotic arm, not the command and control computer itself. The station’s robotic arm currently is in safe mode during the transition, which is expected to take approximately 30 minutes. Mission Control is ensuring protective measures are still in place before the spacewalkers connect cables to the new backup antenna being installed.
The crew is ready to begin the next task of unbolting the antenna dish as soon as the transition is complete.
The spacewalkers are about 2 hours and 20 minutes into today’s spacewalk.