Two astronauts Tuesday ventured out of the International Space Station to carry out a variety of maintenance and installation tasks.
American Chris Cassidy and Italian Luca Parmitano started their spacewalk at 1202 GMT, and their tasks were expected to last six and a half hours, Xinhua cited NASA as saying on its website.
Cassidy was scheduled to route power cables to support the addition of the new Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module that will arrive at the station later this year.
He will also remove and replace a space-to-ground transmitter receiver controller, which failed in December 2012.
Parmitano's task list includes removing a failed camera assembly and photographing the state-of-the-art particle physics detector known as Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 to provide researchers a visual assessment of its condition after two years in space.
The two will also team up to attach two grapple bars to thermal radiators to make them easier to remove and replace should they fail.
This is Parmitano's first spacewalk, making him the first Italian astronaut to walk in space, and Cassidy's fifth. The two are slated to head outside again next Tuesday.
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