NASA astronauts Dan Tani and Peggy Whitson switched their spacesuit batteries to internal power at 4:50 a.m. EST, marking the official start of an excursion aimed at doing some spacewalking inspection work outside the outpost.
Tani is wearing a spacesuit with barber pole stripes and is answering to the radio call sign "EV-1." Whitson is wearing an all-white suit and is "EV-2."
The spacewalk is the 100th to be conducted during the assembly of the station, which began with the linking of two initial building blocks in late 1998. It is the 23rd spacewalk at the outpost this year -- a total that ties the NASA record for most spacewalks in a single year. In 2002, astronauts performed 23 spacewalks assembling the station and servicing the Hubble Space Telescope.
The spacewalk is the fifth for Tani and the fifth for Whitson, the latter of whom is poised to eclipse the world record for most time spacewalking by a woman. Three hours and 37 minutes into today's excursion, she will pass the current record -- 29 hours and 17 minutes -- held by Sunita "Suni" Williams. Williams set the benchmark earlier this year.
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