Space station crew begin marathon spacewalk

HOUSTON: Two of the International Space Station's crew have begun a spacewalk to remove, among other things, an outdated ammonia reservoir, a NASA Houston mission control spokesperson said on Monday.

During the scheduled 6.5 hour spacewalk, US astronaut Clay Anderson and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin will install a television camera stanchion on the station's main truss, reconfigure power supply for an S-Band antenna assembly, and replace a remote power controller module, the US apace agency said.

They will also disconnect and jettison the Early Ammonia Servicer, an ammonia reservoir that was installed on the space station in August 2001, but has never been used. It is no longer needed following the activation of the permanent cooling system last December, NASA said.

The current space walk will be the first for Anderson and third for Yurchikhin.