A veteran Russian cosmonaut and an American astronaut have been given a green light for a spacewalk that will involve some important repair work outside the orbiting outpost.
Station commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineer Jeffrey Williams plan to exit a Russian airlock about 6:40 p.m. EDT Thursday. The two have spent a total of about 110 hours getting ready for the outing since they boarded the station on March 31.
"We will be very prepared when the time comes to go out the door," Williams said in a recent space-to-ground media interview.
The first order of business: Installing a new vent valve that should enable the crew to coax a balky Russian oxygen generation system into operation.
The two also will retrieve a witness plate that has been collecting rocket thruster residue at the aft end of the station's Russian command and control module and a package of biology experiments.
Their last major task: replacing a broken video camera on a small rail car that also serves as a mobile work platform for the station's Canadian-built construction crane.
A Russian Space Agency publicity stunt for a Canadian golf club manufacturer -- one that calls for a cosmonaut to hit a tee shot off the end of the station -- is being delayed until a spacewalk in November.
The excursion Thursday is expected to last about five hours and 40 minutes. A timeline detailing work to be done on the spacewalk is here:
EVA_Timeline0601.doc
Space news and analysis from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral 
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