Two astronauts
are set to step outside the International Space
Station (ISS) today with only spacesuits for protection against the harsh vacuum
of their surroundings during more than six hours of orbital work.
NASA TV will broadcast today's spacewalk live beginning at 9:00 a.m. EDT. Click here. |
ISS
Expedition 13 flight engineers Jeffrey
Williams and Thomas
Reiter are expected to spend more than 6.5 hours attaching new equipment,
experiments and making cooling system repairs on the station's exterior after
leaving the orbital laboratory at 9:55 a.m. EDT (1355 GMT). [Click here
for SPACE.com's live spacewalk coverage at 9:00 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT).]
"The
contents of this EVA [extravehicular activity] will be to install a couple of
systems outside the station," Reiter, the first long-duration astronaut from
Germany and the European Space Agency (ESA) to serve aboard the ISS, told ESA
officials during a recent space-to-ground phone call.
Expedition
13 commander Pavel
Vinogradov will remain inside the ISS during today's planned spacewalk,
marking a first time a human has stayed aboard while others worked outside
since 2003. ISS crews were reduced to two-astronaut teams following NASA's loss of the shuttle Columbia and its
crew in 2003, prompting two-person
spacewalks that left the ISS empty and under control by mission controllers
on Earth.
Vinogradov
will not have to shut hatches or perform other precautionary work performed
during the reduced crew spacewalks, NASA
officials have said. He will, however, be able to help his spacewalking
crewmates don their orbital work clothes, they added.
Once fully sealed
inside their white NASA spacesuits - known as Extravehicular
Mobility Units (EMUs) - Reiter and Williams will exit the station's
U.S.-built Quest airlock and begin their first job of the day: installing what
NASA calls the Floating Potential Measurement Unit (FPMU) on the end of the
station's starboard truss.
"It will
measure the electric potential that will accumulate from the solar arrays of
the station," Reiter said of the new tool.
NASA tracks
solar array electric potential because they can build up charge in flight and
possibly spawn arcs that could
shock nearby ISS equipment or a spacewalking astronaut. Earlier this year,
Expedition 12 commander Bill McArthur tossed a
device similar to the FPMU into space after other spacewalker photography
found that its bolts were loosening their grip on the ISS.
Other major
tasks include a series of repairs and maintenance to equipment supporting the
station's cooling system, the set up of two new, suitcase-sized material
exposure experiments on the orbital laboratory's hull, and a photography experiment
using an infrared video camera. [Click here
for a detailed look at the upcoming Expedition 13 spacewalk.]
"We've been
working hard with this crew for the last year on preparing for this EVA," Paul
Boehm, NASA's Expedition 13 lead spacewalk officer, said during a pre-EVA
briefing. "[It] represents a true mix of ISS experiments and maintenance."
Boehm and
fellow NASA station officials said the cooling system work Williams and Reiter
will perform are the first tasks of an eight-spacewalk plan for ISS crews to
aid future
station construction between upcoming space shuttle visits.
Today's planned
EVA will mark the third career spacewalk for both Williams, a NASA astronaut serving
as science officer during Expedition 13, and Reiter.
Williams
can be identified by the red stripe emblazoned on his NASA spacesuit and will
lead the spacewalk as EV-1.
Reiter, in
an all-white suit, is designated EV-2. His EMU spacesuit is the first to carry
a German flag patch on its shoulder, NASA officials have said.
NASA
will broadcast today's spacewalk live on NASA TV beginning at 9:00 a.m. EDT
(1300 GMT). You are invited to follow the Expedition 13 spacewalk's progress
using SPACE.com's NASA TV feed, which is available by clicking here.
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