Two NASA astronauts completed a six-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Friday to install a parking spot for upcoming commercial space taxis, which will end U.S. reliance on Russia for rides to the orbiting outpost. Station commander Jeff Williams and flight engineer Kate Rubins floated outside the station's airlock and headed toward the berthing slip once used by NASA's now-retired space shuttles, a NASA TV broadcast showed.

Recently, a report stated that two NASA astronauts left the International Space Station on Friday for a 6-1/2-hour spacewalk to install a parking spot for upcoming commercial space taxis, which will end US reliance on Russia for rides to the orbiting outpost. Station commander Jeff Williams and flight engineer Kate Rubins floated outside the station's airlock at about 8:15 AM EDT (1215 GMT) and headed toward the berthing slip once used by NASA's now-retired space shuttles, a NASA TV broadcast showed.

California-based SpaceX, owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, plans to begin test flights of its new passenger Dragon capsule to the station in 2017. Boeing's debut flight of its CST-100 Starliner capsule is expected in 2018. NASA had hoped to have the first of two new docking ports installed last year, but the equipment was destroyed during a SpaceX cargo ship launch accident in June 2015. A replacement docking port is under construction and expected to be delivered to the station in early 2018.

With inputs from Reuters