A pair of cosmonauts will work outside the International Space Station today (Oct. 28), and you can watch the off-Earth action live.
The duo “will install experiment hardware on the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module, and relocate a control panel for the European robotic arm attached to Nauka,” NASA News Chief Cheryl Warner wrote in an emailed statement on Monday (Oct. 27).
Most of NASA’s activities are on hold due to the ongoing government shutdown, but the agency will stream today’s spacewalk “and provide minimal technical commentary as this activity relates to excepted mission operations,” Warner wrote.
This will be the second spacewalk in less than two weeks for Ryzhikov, who commands the International Space Station‘s current Expedition 73, and flight engineer Zubritsky. The duo also performed an extravehicular activity on Oct. 16, installing a semiconductor experiment on the orbiting lab and jettisoning an old HDTV camera.
Today’s spacewalk will be the third for Ryzhikov, who will wear a spacesuit with red stripes, and the second for for Zubritsky, whose suit will have blue stripes, according to Warner.
It will be the 277th overall spacewalk in the history of the ISS, which has hosted rotating astronaut crews continuously since Nov. 2, 2000.