How to watch Sultan Al Neyadi's historic spacewalk on Friday

The Emirati astronaut will venture outside the space station for nearly seven hours

Sultan Al Neyadi gets his spacesuit ready for his spacewalk. Photo: Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre

Emirati astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi is set to become the first Arab astronaut to perform a spacewalk on Friday.

He will float outside the International Space Station at about 5.15pm GST with Nasa colleague Stephen Bowen for nearly seven hours to carry out maintenance work.

Dr Al Neyadi joins an exclusive club of astronauts as only 260 spacewalks have taken place at the orbiting science laboratory since 1998.

The duo have multiple tasks assigned to them, including retrieving and relocating foot restraints that astronauts can use during future spacewalks, preparing a part of the station for a solar array installation and retrieving a piece of communication hardware.

How to watch the spacewalk

The spacewalk will be streamed live on Nasa's and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre's websites and on social media channels.

Their spacesuits will switch to battery power at about 5.15pm GST, and the live-stream is expected to begin around that time.

Viewers will be able to listen in to the communication between mission control in Houston and the astronauts while the spacewalk is taking place.

A Nasa employee will also be describing exactly what is happening.

What exactly will the astronauts be doing?

Dr Al Neyadi and Mr Bowen will carry out various tasks during their long spacewalk.

Their first major job will be to retrieve foot restraints spread out on different parts of the station's exterior.

These restraints will be stowed away or placed in other parts of the station so astronauts can use them in future spacewalks.

They will then prepare a part of the ISS for a solar array installation that will be carried out during a spacewalk later this year.

Dr Al Neyadi will also be retrieving a radio frequency unit that will eventually be sent back to Earth for repairs.

The unit has a multi-thermal insulation tent over it, so he will spend some of his time removing that.

Mr Bowen will be assisting in removing the hardware.

He will be carried to the voltage side of the radio frequency unit by the station's robotic arm and use a drill to unscrew the bolts to finally remove the hardware from the station.

It will be Mr Bowen's eighth spacewalk.