Video: NASA officials preview space station battery replacement spacewalks

Two space station astronauts carried out a trouble-free five-hour 58-minute spacewalk Friday, completing complex battery replacement work on the right side of the lab’s solar power truss with enough time left over to carry out a variety of lower-priority “get-ahead” tasks.

Two astronauts floated outside the International Space Station early Friday for the first of four planned spacewalks to wrap up a complex multi-year job to replace 48 aging batteries in the lab’s solar power system with 24 more powerful lithium-ion units.

A Japanese H-2B rocket launched toward the International Space Station on Friday with a fresh set of high-power batteries, critical parts for the research lab’s carbon dioxide scrubber, and several tons of food, water and provisions.