Two U.S. astronauts are suited up in the Quest airlock at the International Space Station today, preparing to venture outside to swap out a broken motor drive that plays a key power-production role at the outpost.
Station commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani are scheduled to start a planned 6.5-hour excursion around 5:20 a.m. EST. But the two are running about 20 to 25 minutes ahead of schedule. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko is in the larger cylinder equipment lock of Quest helping the crew work through final preparations.
The change-out work is considered vital to NASA plans to continue assembly of the outpost this year with the addition of European and Japanese science labs. A new motor must be installed in order to generate enough power to add the Japanese Experiment Module during a shuttle mission set for launch in April.
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.
Check out the detailed timeline for the spacewalk here: Spacewalk Timeline.
A spacewalk preview is posted below.
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