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WASHINGTON, Sept 2: Two US astronauts gingerly stepped out of the shuttle Discovery on Tuesday and began the first space-walk of the mission’s nine-day stay at the International Space Station (ISS), reports AFP.

Astronaut Nicole Stott emerged from the orbiter’s decompression chamber at 2149 GMT some 350 kilometers (255 miles) above the Pacific ocean and was joined in the blackness of space by Mission Specialist Danny Olivas for what is expected to be a walk of 6.5 hours, according to US space agency NASA.
With the help of the station’s robotic arm and guided by shuttle Commander Rick Sturckow and space-walk choreographer Pat Forrester, the duo will be removing an old liquid ammonia coolant tank from the ISS truss.

A new, 800-kilogram (1,760-pound) replacement will be installed during the second space- walk.
They will also be retrieving experiment equipment from the outside of the ISS, from the European Columbus module, and returning it to Earth for processing.
Astronauts are scheduled to conduct two more space-walks during the mission, the fourth of five planned for the shuttle program this year. The last is scheduled for November.
Earlier Tuesday the Discovery’s seven-member crew—including Swede Christer Fuglesang—and the six ISS residents began unloading tons of equipment to the orbiting station after opening the hatch to the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module built by the Italian space agency, NASA said.

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