In the days leading up to the spacewalk, the Expedition 14 crewmembers will be reviewing the Russian procedures for the trip outside of the International Space Station (ISS). U.S. ISS commander Lopez-Alegria, representing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Russian ISS flight engineer Tyurin, representing the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos), will work on an antenna of the Progress M-58 (ISS 23P) unpiloted cargo carrier, which is currently docked at the aft port of the Zvezda service module.

The Progress series of Russian expendable freighter spacecraft is unmanned during its flight but after docking with a space station crewmembers can enter the craft. Its basic design comes from the Soyuz spacecraft. It is launched into space with a Soyuz-U launch vehicle on October 23, 2006.

When the spacecraft docked to the space station in October 26, 2006, its antenna did not properly retract. The spacewalkers will attempt to secure or remove the antenna to avoid interference with the undocking of Progress M-58 from the space station that is scheduled for April 8, 2007.

It is the fourth flight into space for U.S. astronaut Lopez-Alegria, who is 45 years of age. Previously, he flew onboard three NASA Space Shuttle missions. Besides commander of the ISS, Lopez-Alegria is also acting as NASA’s science officer. The February 22 spacewalk will be the tenth spacewalk for Lopez-Alegria, and will in all likelihood set new U.S. records for most spacewalking hours—a record currently held by astronaut Jerry Ross at 58 hours, 18 minutes—and most spacewalks—a record currently also held by Ross with nine. Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyov leads the world record with 77 hours, 41 minutes over 16 spacewalks.

Russian cosmonaut Turin, age 46 years, is making his second flight into space. He also served as a member of the Expedition 3 crew to the space station in 2001.

Live NASA TV coverage of the spacewalk on February 22, 2007 begins at 4 a.m. (U.S.) eastern standard time (EST). The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 5 a.m. EST. The spacewalk can be viewed live on NASA TV at: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/.

For additional information on the Expedition crew, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html.

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