 | | Astronauts conducting second spacewalk |
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Two U.S. astronauts stepped out of the International Space Station for their second spacewalk on Thursday, doing some chores for the orbital outpost, NASA TV broadcast.
Spacewalkers Michael Fossum and Ronald Garan began the second spacewalk of space shuttle Discovery's STS-124 mission at 11:04 a.m. EDT (1504 GMT).
The excursion will last for about 6.5 hours. The duo will continue outfitting the exterior of Japan's Kibo laboratory. They will install two TV cameras on Kibo's newly-installed pressurized science module and remove the thermal cover of Kibo robotic arm system.
Then they will prepare Kibo's storage module for relocation. Its storage module was delivered by U.S. space shuttle Endeavour in March and was attached at a temporary place outside the station. Discovery and station crewmembers will move and attach it to the pressurized science module on Friday.
During today's spacewalk, they will also try to remove an external television camera that has a failing power supply. They will bring the camera inside the station with them, where the power supply will be replaced, and then reinstall it during the third spacewalk on Sunday.
Meanwhile, astronauts inside the station will activate the second of the two Kibo science module power channels and continue outfitting the inside of the new module, which is now the biggest of the nine rooms at the station.
Discovery arrived at the station on Monday, and it will stay up there for nine days, during which astronauts assemble Kibo's new science module and other construction tasks for the space outpost.
Source: Xinhua
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