By SPA,
Houston : Shuttle Discovery’s astronauts geared up for the first spacewalk of their mission Tuesday and the Installation of Japan’s giant lab to the international space station.
The two spacecraft linked up Monday, and the 10 space travelers immediately got ready to tackle their first big job.
Discovery’s designated spacewalkers, Michael Fossum and Ronald Garan Jr., will prep the US$1 billion (¤640 million) lab, named Kibo _ Japanese for hope _ for installation.
Later in the day, astronauts working from inside will use a robot arm to lift the bus-size lab from the shuttle and anchor it to the station.
Kibo, at 37 feet (11 meters) long, is bigger than the U.S. and European labs already attached to the space station, the Associated Press reported.