Station Spacewalk Prep Continues in Airlock

The two astronauts who will perform a walk in space to help attach the 31,100 pound Starboard 6 solar array truss segment to the international space station are moving through their time line and are ahead of schedule as of 10:26 am EDT.

Discovery's mission specialists Ricky Arnold and Steve Swanson [Swanson will wear red stripes on his space suit] have their thermal garments on [above image] and will don their extra mobility units or space suits in one hour.

Today's spacewalk will be the 121st in association with the construction of the space station. Today's spacewalk should begin about 1:13 pm EDT [or sooner if ahead of the timeline], and conclude at about 7:43 pm. The S6 truss will be attached by using the station's robotic arm - docking it to the current S5 solar array truss.

Following the S6 docking to the S5, the spacewalkers will attach four cables which will allow power generated by the new arrays to make it's way to the station. Read my story from yesterday outlining the specs of the S6.

Watch the entire mission - including today's first of three planned STS-119 spacewalks - via SpaceLaunchNews.com.