Fifth Endeavour Spacewalk Underway

The fifth and final spacewalk of space shuttle Endeavour's mission to the international space station is underway as two astronauts complete tasks at the Japanese module.

Endeavour astronauts Chris Cassidy and Thomas Marshburn began the 130th spacewalk in support of space station construction since 1998. This is also the pair'sthird spacewalk each.

Today's orbital walk in space began nearly one hour early at 7:33 am EDT, as the shuttle-station passed over the central Atlantic Ocean.

Addressing questions about today's spacewalk during a news conference on Sunday, Endeavour's commander Mark "Roman" Polansky summed up his thoughts on the orbital walk today, "I have all the confidence in the world in the EVA team and all the folks back in Houston and everywhere else who have planned what we're going to do. We're all keenly aware that EVAs carry some risk to them and so we're going to be very, very deliberate and careful about the last EVA... So EVA-5 should be our final one and we're hoping it's going to go real well."

Cassidy and Marshburn will set up two video cameras on the Japanese Exposed Facility this morning. The cameras will help astronauts in the Japanese Kibo module to inspect science experiments which are exposed to the vacumm of space; and to assist with the future dockings of the new H-2 transfer cargo crafts which will be launched from Japan beginning this September 10.

Between now and through 2016, America, Russia, Japa and Europe will launch their own unmanned crafts to space station, filled with fuel, oxygen, food, experiments and astronaut personal items.

The spacewalk is expected to last 6 hours.