ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION<br/> <br />Two veteran spacewalkers floated outside the International Space Station on Monday (August 20) to prepare the orbital outpost for a new module and beef up its living quarters against micrometeorite and debris impacts, officials said.<br/> <br />Dressed in spacesuits, station commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko opened the hatch on the station's Pirs airlock at 11:37 a.m. EDT (1537 GMT) to begin a 6-1/2 hour spacewalk to relocate a construction crane, install debris shields and release a small satellite into orbit.<br/> <br />The spacewalk was delayed about an hour while engineers assessed a leak or leaks between Pirs and Russian segments of the station, a $100 billion laboratory for microgravity experiments and technology testing that flies about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.<br/> <br />Engineers monitored pressure readings in the modules for several minutes before clearing the cosmonauts to proceed with the spacewalk.<br/> <br />Padalka and Malenchenko, who has made four previous spacewalks, plan to move a hand-operated crane, called Strela-2, from the outside of the Pirs docking module to Zarya, the cornerstone of the station. The expandable 46-foot (14-meter) boom will be needed next year to install a new Russia module to the station, a project of 15 countries.<br/> <br />The United States completed construction of its part of the outpost last year and retired its three space shuttles.
