Thursday, June 01, 2006
Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are leaving through the motions of a spacewalk today in preparations for the real thing afterward this week.
ISS Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineer Jeffrey Williams donned their Russian-built Orlan spacesuits for a dress practice of the nearly six-hour June 1 tour to maintain their orbital spacecraft.
"The crew seems very comfortable and ready to go do the spacewalk," said Holly Ridings, NASA's lead trip director for the upcoming extravehicular activity (EVA), during a Tuesday press briefing at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
While NASA ISS flight controllers full the Expedition 13 crew's coming spacewalk, the astronauts themselves conduct final checks on the systems and mobility of their Orlan spacesuits, NASA officials said.
Vinogradov and Williams are predictable to exit the space station's Russian-built Pirs docking compartment at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2240 GMT) for a five-hour and 40-minute spacewalk to gather experiments and maintain the ISS. The spacewalk would mark the sixth career EVA for Vinogradov - who staged five others from Russia’s Mir space station - and the second for Williams.
"The equipment that we have is very good and the training that we've been provided by the team on the ground is very good," Williams told reporters last week. "We will be very prepared when the time comes to go out the door."
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posted by kanth
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