New Delhi: Two spacewalkers are carrying out a variety of tasks outside the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, March 24.


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Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA and Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) are conducting an EVA (Extravehicular Activity) to prepare the space station for the future arrival of US commercial crew spacecraft and upgrade station hardware.


NASA is live streaming the six-and-a-half hour spacewalk online and you can Watch it HERE. Also, NASA TV is providing complete coverage of the spacewalk scheduled to begin about 8 a.m. EDT, Friday.


Expedition 50 astronauts will conduct three spacewalks outside the ISS in late March and early April.


 


The first spacewalk scheduled today will see Kimbrough and Pesquet disconnecting cables and electrical connections on PMA-3 to prepare for its robotic move on Sunday, March 26.


PMA-3 will be moved from the port side of the Tranquility module to the space-facing side of the Harmony module, where it will become home for the docking adapter, which will be delivered on a future flight of a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft.


They will also install on the starboard zero truss a new computer relay box equipped with advanced software for the adapter.


The two spacewalkers also lubricate the latching end effector on the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator “extension” for the Canadarm2 robotic arm, inspect a radiator valve suspected of a small ammonia leak and replace cameras on the Japanese segment of the outpost.


A second spacewalk has been rescheduled on Thursday, March 30, and a third spacewalk on Thursday, April 6.