STS-116 Update: EVA-1

From Space.com:

Two astronauts will step outside the International Space Station (ISS) Tuesday afternoon to install a new piece to the orbital laboratory’s metallic backbone.

Clad in white NASA spacesuits, Discovery shuttle astronauts Robert Curbeam and Christer Fuglesang are expected to exit the space station’s Quest airlock at 3:42 p.m. EST (2035 GMT) and spend about six and a half hours working in orbit.

Their primary goal is the installation of a new piece of the ISS—the Port 5 (P5) spacer—to the portside end of the station’s main truss.

Small, but vital, the boxy P5 truss is designed to serve as a bridge between the station’s Port 3/Port 4 (P3/P4) solar arrays and the Port 6 (P6) solar array element. The P3/P4 extends off to the station’s port side, but the older P6 array reaches upward, mast-like from the orbital laboratory’s centerline and will be moved during a later shuttle mission [image].

“This truss that we’re bringing up, the P5 truss, is almost like a spider,” said Curbeam, who is the lead spacewalker of STS-116, in a preflight NASA interview. “It allows us to take the P6 truss, which has been up there for several years now…and put it in its rightful place, if you will.”

Today's EVa is the first of three planned for Discovery's mission.