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Shuttle Discovery astronauts carry out first of three scheduled spacewalks

RIA Novosti

09/04/201011:14

MOSCOW, April 9 (RIA Novosti) - U.S. Discovery space shuttle astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Clay Anderson have begun the first of three scheduled spacewalks 10 minutes ahead of schedule, NASA reported.

NASA said on its website the two spacewalkers were due to replace an Ammonia Tank Assembly on the station's starboard truss, a job they would continue during the second and third spacewalks on Sunday and Tuesday. The spacewalk will last six and a half hours.

"They also will retrieve the Micro-Particles Capture/Space Environment Exposure Device (MPAC/SEED) experiment from the outside of the Japanese Exposed Facility for return to Earth and swap out a failed Rate Gyro Assembly, part of the station's navigation system," NASA said.

On April 7, Shuttle Discovery successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) manually after a malfunction on board the shuttle. Discovery blasted off on schedule at 6:21 a.m. local time (14:21 GMT) on Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on one of NASA's final stockpiling missions to the ISS.

This is Discovery's 33rd mission to the ISS, and the 131st mission of the Space Shuttle program.

The current mission will last 13 days and astronauts will perform three space walks, each of which is planned to last around six and a half hours.