Space walk gets underway at International Space Station

The space walk, the second of the mission and the 18th in the history of International Space Station, began at 11:23 p.m. CST (00:23 GMT Tuesday). The two were also due to also due to hook up external stowage platform for spare parts and inspect a probe that is designed to measure the amount of electrical discharge outside of the station.

STS-102 is the eighth shuttle mission to visit the ISS and apart from docking the Italian-made Leonardo module, will also result in a crew change of the ISS crew. Leonardo, a reusable "moving van" built by the Italian Space Agency, carried more than 4.5 metric tons (5 tons) of equipment to the station. Leonardo will be removed from the station and placed back into Discovery's payload bay March 17. Leonardo was docked on Monday.

The new crew on the ISS are Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev, James Voss and Susan Helms. Returning to earth are Expedition One Commander Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. The Discovery is expected to return to Earth on March 20.

(la/dpa)