Two crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) have started the second spacewalk in this month on Wednesday, the Mission Control Center outside Moscow said, reported Xinhua.
Russian Commander Gennady Padalka and U.S. Flight Engineer Michael Barratt opened the hatch of the space station at 10:55 a.m. Moscow time (0655 GMT) and began the spacewalk, said Valery Lyndin, spokesman for the Mission Control Center.
The main task of the walk is to change a docking component of the Zvezda (Star) service module, said Lyndin.
He said both spacewalks conducted in first half of June aim to install necessary equipment outside the Zvezda service module for the docking of Russia's small research module MIM-2, a space vehicle due to blast off in autumn.
The whole process is expected to last about 40 minutes.
Padalka and Barratt installed three antennae for the Kurs auto-docking system to receive MIM-2 on June 5 in a nearly five-hour spacewalk.
Three astronauts joined the three crew members already on board the space station in late May and formed a six-member permanent crew for the first time.