Two Russian cosmonauts are planning to take a spacewalk today (Jan. 19) to ready a new International Space Station module for visiting spacecraft, and you can watch it live.
Expedition 66 Cmdr. Anton Shkaplerov and flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov, both of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, will spend the day working together outside the International Space Station. Coverage will start at 6 a.m EST (1130 GMT) and will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, NASA social media and here at Space.com.
The agency did not disclose detailed timing for the extravehicular activity (EVA), but typically spacewalks start around 7:30 a.m. EST (1230 GMT) and last for six or seven hours.
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The focus of this spacewalk's activities will be the Prichal module, which arrived at the space station Nov. 26 without incident. Prichal and the science module Nauka represent two major upgrades to Russian space facilities in orbit in the past few months. Prichal features six new ports for the station's Russian segment; one permanently docks it to Nauka, while the other five are free for visiting ships.
During the spacewalk, you can spot Shkaplerov in a Russian Orlan spacesuit with red stripes, distinguishing him as the lead spacewalker. Dubrov's spacesuit will have blue stripes.
The duo hopes to add handrails, antennas, a television camera and docking targets to Prichal, allowing the docking module to accept its first visiting spacecraft in March. The first spacecraft then will be a Russian Soyuz, crewed with three people as a part of the larger Expedition 67.
NASA says this spacewalk is the 246th in support of ISS assembly, maintenance and upgrades. This will be the third career spacewalk for Shkaplerov's career and the fourth for Dubrov. It is also the first ISS spacewalk in 2022.
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