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ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet testing his spacesuit for his first spacewalk, on Friday 13 January 2017. Together with NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, he will exit the International Space Station at 12:05 GMT (13:05 CET) to complete a battery upgrade to the outpost’s power system.

Thomas and Shane’s spacewalk this week is the second to work on the batteries. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and Shane spent six hours and 32 minutes outside installing adapter plates and connecting three of the six new batteries on Friday 6 January.

Thomas practised this spacewalk for months on Earth at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, USA, and has spent the last few weeks in space working intensively to prepare the spacesuits and tools for the sortie.