Cape Canaveral (US), Jul 16 (AP) A pair of spacewalking astronauts tackled the final set of battery swaps outside the International Space Station on Thursday.

NASA's Bob Behnken and Chris Cassidy ventured out on their third spacewalk over the past few weeks. They needed to remove six more old batteries in the space station's power grid, and replace them with new, improved ones.

Also Read | Indian Commercial Pilots' Association Writes Letter to Air India CMD Rajiv Bansal Over Proposed Cut in Payments to Pilots: Live News Breaking and Coronavirus Updates on July 16, 2020.

"Have fun out there," astronaut Doug Hurley urged from inside.

The new lithium-ion batteries — big, boxy units with a mass of around 400 pounds (180 kilograms ) — are so powerful that only half as many are needed. The batteries store power gathered by the station's solar panels for use on the nighttime side of Earth.

Also Read | Kulbhushan Jadhav Granted Second Consular Access by Pakistan: Reports.

The battery replacements began 3 1/2 years ago, with 48 old batteries targeted for replacement. Behnken and Cassidy will conduct a fourth and final spacewalk next week to complete the job.

Behnken arrived at the space station at the end of May on a SpaceX capsule, the company's first astronaut flight. He and Hurley are scheduled to return to Earth in the Dragon capsule in early August.

Cassidy is serving as the space station commander. He's halfway through a six-month mission; a Russian Soyuz capsule is his ride to and from the orbiting outpost. Both Behnken and Cassidy each now have nine spacewalks to their credit. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)