Astronauts double-check safety gear

Spacewalking astronauts Peggy Whitson and Dan Tani are now outside the International Space Station, preparing to make a lengthy hand-over-hand cawl out to the starboard end of the outpost's central truss.

But first, the astronauts are tending to some standard safety checks outside the U.S. Quest airlock. Whitson and Tani are checking braided-steel, 85-foot safety tethers that will be used to secure the astronauts to station structure at all times. They also are checking out jet backpacks they would use to fly back to the station in the unlikely event that they were inadvertently untethered.

You can check out the step-by-step procedures here: Spacewalk Timeline.

And you can watch the action unfold here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the link below the image above to launch our NASA TV viewer and refresh this page for periodic updates.