Video: Narrated preview of Jan. 6 spacewalk

The flight of Gemini 4 launched today in 1965 for NASA’s first Extra Vehicular Activity spacewalk by Ed White on a four-day orbital mission with commander Jim McDivitt.

Legendary cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first human to walk in space — an experience that almost killed him — and later the commander of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that docked with a NASA Apollo capsule, symbolizing a historic thaw in the Cold War, has died after a long illness, the Russian space agency confirmed Friday. He was 85.

Space station commander Peggy Whitson and astronaut Jack Fischer are set for a two-and-a-half hour spacewalk Tuesday, a quickly-planned excursion to replace a recently installed external computer that failed Saturday.