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ISS astronauts perform urgent repair spacewalk: watch it live

ISS astronauts perform urgent repair spacewalk: watch it live

NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Steve Swanson are headed outside the International Space Station this morning, on an urgent spacewalk to fix the station's broken backup computer.

This spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 9:20 a.m. Eastern Time, but unlike previous repair spacewalks, which took up to six hours to complete, this one is expected to only take 2.5 hours.

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The computer being replaced is one that failed on Friday, April 11, forcing the crew to shut down certain systems on the station. The primary computer is functioning, and the crew is in no danger from this, but replacing the backup computer is critical, as having both computers fail at the same time would make life very difficult on the station.

The spacewalk was delayed until this week due to the crew needing supplies aboard the latest SpaceX Dragon cargo ship to repair their spacesuits, one of which caused a water leak last July that threatened to drown Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano.

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