International Space Station commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani have switched their spacesuit batteries on, marking the official start of a planned 6.5-hour excursion outside the outpost.
For the record book, the official start time was 4:56 a.m. EST -- or 24 minutes ahead of schedule.
Whitson, the first woman to command a station expedition, is wearing a suit with solid red stripes on its legs. She is answering to the radio call sign "EV-1."
Tani is wearing a suit with barber-pole stripes and is answering to the call sign "EV-2."
NASA's Kwatsi Alibaruho is the lead flight director in the agency's Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, who helped develop the plan for the spacewalk, is the "Capcom," or capsule communicator in Mission Control. He'll be directing the spacewalk, which is the 101st to be carried out in the assembly and maintenance of the outpost.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment