NASA, UAE astronauts use spacewalk to work on ISS power systems

April 28 (UPI) -- NASA astronaut Steve Bowen and UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi embarked on a spacewalk from the International Space Station on Friday morning to do preliminary work for upgrading the solar arrays that power the station.

The astronauts, who stepped out of the station at 9:11 a.m. EDT Friday, are tasked with preparing the station's starboard truss for panel installation and removing S-band antenna equipment from the station's exterior to bring it inside for upgrades.

The work is expected to take about 6.5 hours.

NASA is providing live coverage of the spacewalk on the agency's website.

Four new solar arrays -- which convert energy from the sun into electricity to power the space station -- have been installed, with two more to come.

In February, NASA's Nicole Mann and the Japanese Space Agency's Koichi Wakata finished installing a mounting platform for them.

On Tuesday, cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev delayed a spacewalk to help detach and move an airlock from one station module to another. Russian space agency Roscosmos decided it needed more time to study the tasks.

It has been rescheduled for Wednesday.