Two Tims team up tomorrow morning (Jan. 15) for a walk outside the International Space Station: first-time British astronaut Tim Peake and American astronaut Tim Kopra, who both arrived at the orbiting lab in December.
The duo is scheduled to venture outside the station at 7:55 a.m. EST (1255 GMT) tomorrow to replace a failed voltage regulator. You can watch all of the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV; coverage begins at 6:30 a.m. EST (1130 GMT). (Do check in relatively early if possible, because spacewalks can start early if astronauts are extra-speedy getting ready.)
During the spacewalk, you'll be able to distinguish the members of Team Tim easily: spacewalk leader Tim Kopra will have red stripes on his suit, while Tim Peake will have none. [Photos: The Most Memorable Spacewalks in History]
Kopra took his first spacewalk in December with NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, but this will be Peake's first — one of a few firsts for Peake, who is also the first British astronaut to visit the station (and possibly the first to say "God save the Queen" in space). Peake is flying under the auspices of the European Space Agency.
Peake and Kopra both served as military and test pilots before beginning their spaceflight careers. Kopra flew aboard the space station for two months in 2009, and almost flew again on the space shuttle Discovery's last flight, but he was injured in a bicycle accident weeks before that latter mission was scheduled to blast off.
The two Tims launched to space Dec. 15 along with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, who piloted the group's Soyuz spacecraft. They're joined aboard the station by Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov; Kelly and Kornienko are both nearing the end of a yearlong space mission, and they and Volkov will return to Earth in March.
Recently, the crewmembers have monitored how their eyes changed during spaceflight as part of the Fluid Shifts experiment, and Kopra has been exercising within the Sprint experiment, which is investigating whether high-intensity, low-volume activity can stave off some of the muscle loss that comes with living in space. Peake, on the other hand, has his own exercise routine: He plans to run the London Marathon on a treadmill alongside his Earthbound peers in April.
The two Tims have repeatedly assured curious reporters that their names won't be confusing during everyday space-station life and on spacewalks — communicators will simply use their first and last names if there's any confusion. Mission controllers for the upcoming spacewalk, too, addressed the issue: When watching the spacewalk tomorrow, NASA fans will hear "for Tim Peake" or "for Tim Kopra" as they're given precise instructions for repairing one of the station's eight power channels.
Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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