Astronauts aboard the orbiting shuttle-station complex geared up for the first spacewalk of their mission today, amid some good news from Mission Control.

A Nasa astronaut has had to pull out of a space shuttle launch after falling off his bicycle.

ASTRONAUTS working inside and out installed a porch for experiments on Japan’s enormous space station lab, accomplishing the major objective despite microphone static that often drowned out the spacewalkers’ voices.