Two cosmonauts from Russia have ventured out of the International Space Station to their scheduled six-hour spacewalk in order to test and upgrade systems on the orbiting laboratory’s outer walls.

The Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin drifted outside the space station and began their task at 9:32 a.m. EDT (1332 GMT). This is Misurkin's first time to spacewalk, while this was Yurchikhin sixth. In total, Yurchikhin has around 31 hours and 52 minutes of spacewalk time under his belt.

Both cosmonauts are expected to test the automatic docking cables in preparation for the new Russian module which is scheduled to arrive at the space station later his year. Yurchikhin and Misurkin are also scheduled to install clamps which will clip on cables that are from the United States station’s area, to power the new module on the Russian’s part of the lab.

Another task they need to accomplish is the installation of a handhold to assist in future spacewalks. They also need to replace the valve panel of the fluid flow control on the Zarya module, and at the same time, get experiments from outside of the space station.

Their spacewalk is the first since two of NASA’s astronauts had to carry out an unplanned emergency spacewalk in order to repair an ammonia leakage outside of the space station last May. The spacewalk by Yurchikhin and Misurkin will be the 169th to support the care and construction of the space station.

The two cosmonauts are also joined by NASA’s Chris Cassidy and Karen Nyberg aboard the space station, another Russian Pavel Vinogradov, and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano

The orbiting space lab is the same size of a five-bedroom residence, and a width of a football field. The International Space Station is worth $100 billion and was made through the efforts of five space agencies from 15 countries. It was commissioned in 1998 and has been filled with rotating crews of astronauts since 2000.