Astronauts Conduct Spacewalk Outside ISS Today! Watch it Live

The International Space Station is getting some upgrades, thanks to two spacewalking astronauts today. Expedition 36 Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency have just begun the first of two, key six and a half hour spacewalks that will lay the foundations for the arrival of the Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM) at the end of the year.

While the spacewalk may seem like it's exciting, though, it will mainly consist of a variety of maintenance chores. These will include replacing failed communications equipment, removing a bad camera and collecting science experiments, according to the AP. More specificially, Parmitano will remove the Ooptical Reflector Materials Experiment III (ORMatE-III) and the Payload Experiment Container, which assessed the impacts of the space environment on materials and processor elements, according to NASA.

Cassidy has been on spacewalks before. In fact, this will be the fifth of his career, which means he'll be taking the lead on this particular mission. In contrast, this will be Parmitano's first time on a spacewalk. This will make him Italy's first astronaut ever to walk in space. A 36-year-old pilot in the Italian Air Force, Parmitano floated out of the airlock hatch this morning in order to begin work on the ISS.

"It is an incredible treat and certainly one of the highlights of any astronaut's career to do a spacewalk," said Parmitano in an interview with collectSPACE.com.

This isn't the only spacewalk that the astronauts will be conducting, though. They plan to undergo another one next Tuesday in order to finish the jobs that they start today. You can watch the two astronauts yourself on NASA TV here. Cassidy will be wearing a U.S. extravehicular mobility suit bearing red stripes while Parmitano will be wearing a spacesuit with no stripes.