HOUSTON, May 30 (UPI) -- The crew of the International Space Station began a lengthy spacewalk Wednesday to install orbital debris protection panels and route cables.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration controllers in Houston said the main objectives of the spacewalk by Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov was to install the panels on the space station's Zvezda service module, as well as route cables associated with the Automated Transfer Vehicle navigation systems. They were also to replace experiments on the module's hull.
Yurchikhin and Kotov spent much of this week preparing for the spacewalk, checking out their spacesuits and preparing the tools they were to use.
NASA said Wednesday's spacewalk, scheduled to last six hours, began about 3:05 p.m. EDT, approximately 45 minutes behind schedule because of communications problems.
