Expedition 50 crewmates Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet will exit the International Space Station on Friday (March 24) to prepare a docking port to be relocated at the orbiting outpost.
The two spacewalkers are scheduled to begin the spacewalk, the first of three scheduled over the next two weeks, at 7 a.m. CDT (1200 GMT). The EVA (extravehicular activity) is expected to take about six and a half hours to complete.
Kimbrough's and Pesquet's major tasks include disconnecting cables from the Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 ahead of its move from the Tranquility Node 3 to the Harmony Node 2 on Sunday (March 26). The spacewalkers will also lubricate the latching end of the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, Dextre, and replace computer relay boxes with commercial crew software upgrades.
After it is moved and reconnected, PMA-3 will be outfitted with an international docking adapter (IDA) to be delivered on a future flight of a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft.
This will be the 198th spacewalk in support of space station assembly and maintenance. It will be Kimbrough's fifth EVA of his career and Pesquet's second.