CAPE CANAVERAL: Astronauts ventured out on a spacewalk on Friday to install a new door for visitors at the International Space Station. The two Americans, Jeffrey Williams and Kate Rubins, quickly began hooking up a docking port that will be used by future commercial crew capsules.

SpaceX delivered this new gateway last month. Americans haven’t rocketed into orbit from their home turf since Nasa’s last shuttle flight in 2011. SpaceX and Boeing expect to resume human launches from Cape Canaveral in another year or two.

SpaceX is shooting for a launch of its supped-up Dragon with two astronauts as early as a year from now. Boeing is aiming for a two-person test flight of its Starliner capsule in early 2018. Until then, Russia will keep providing all the rides — at a hefty price for US taxpayers. Nasa divested itself of cargo deliveries a few years back, hiring private US companies to carry out shipments. Commercial crew launches will be an even bigger step. This commercial handoff is freeing up Nasa to focus on true outer-space exploration; the space agency is working to get astronauts to Mars in the 2030s. This is actually Nasa’s second newfangled docking ring.

The first was destroyed in a SpaceX launch accident last summer. Nasa ultimately wants two of these 3 1/2-foot-by-5-foot ports at the 250-mile-high lab. Another one — cobbled together from spare parts — should fly up in about a year. The space station is currently home to two Americans, one Japanese and three Russians. Up there for five months, Williams and two of the Russians will return to Earth in a couple weeks.

First, though, Williams will conduct one more spacewalk with Rubins on Sept 1 to retract a radiator.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2016