The two American astronauts aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday began the first of three spacewalks planned for the next week, NASA announced. Station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Sunita Williams began their spacewalk at 1515 GMT and are scheduled to perform two others by February 8.
In the first three walks, each scheduled to take six hours, Williams and Lopez-Alegria will rearrange electrical connections and reconfigure one of the Destiny module's cooling loops.
They will also remove a solar shade and thermal shrouds that are no longer needed, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration said in a statement.
The next two walks are slated for Sunday and February 8 and will be coordinated entirely by mission control in Houston, Texas.
Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, another flight engineer, will join Lopez-Alegria in a spacewalk on February 22 to remove a defective antenna on the Russian cargo vessel Progress, to ensure that it will not interfere when the vessel undocks from the space station in April.
