Watch ISS spacewalk live today

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January 15, 2016

NASA astronaut Tim Kopra is seen floating during a spacewalk on December 21, 2015. Image credit: NASA

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will perform the first spacewalk of the year on Friday. NASA Television will air the spacewalk live. Coverage will begin at 6:30 a.m. on Friday, January 15, 2016. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 7:55 a.m. and end 6.5 hours later. Watch here.

Expedition 46 flight engineers Tim Kopra of NASA and Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency) will venture outside the space station’s Quest airlock to replace a failed voltage regulator that compromised one of the station’s eight power channels last November. The January 15 spacewalk will be the third in Kopra’s career. Peake’s spacewalk will be his first, and the first-ever spacewalk for a British astronaut.

The spacewalk will focus on replacing a voltage regulator called a Sequential Shunt Unit that failed November 13, 2015. Additional tasks include deploying cables for the future installation of an International Docking Adapter that will accommodate U.S. commercial crew vehicles, and retrieving a broken light from a truss camera.

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Bottom line: On Friday January 15, 2016, two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will perform the first spacewalk of the year . NASA Television will air the spacewalk live. Coverage will begin at 6:30 a.m. on Friday, January 15, 2016 with the spacewalk scheduled to begin at 7:55 a.m.

Eleanor Imster

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About the Author:

Eleanor Imster has helped write and edit EarthSky since 1995. She was an integral part of the award-winning EarthSky radio series almost since it began until it ended in 2013. She and her husband live in Tennessee, where they enjoy guitar playing and singing. They have 2 grown sons.