NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren are scheduled to perform a six-and-a-half hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Wednesday, in an attempt to upgrade the station and perform required maintenance, the administration said.

Kelly will take command of the spacewalk, as he is the more senior member of the space station; he will be the first to depart the ship , according to Time. Plans for the spacewalk have been in development for several months, the report added.

"The major goals of the excursion are to lubricate the snare mechanism on one end of the lab's robot arm; to install insulation on a high-energy physics experiment; to remove insulation from a stowed electrical distribution box; and to lay power and data cables needed by a new docking mechanism that will be installed later ," CBS News wrote.

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for either Kelly or Lindgren, according to Space.com. This is the , and the 189th overall since the ISS first launched in 1998, NASA said.

The spacewalk comes on Day 215 in space for Kelly, who is spending a year aboard the ISS, among other reasons, according to NASA. At the same time, NASA is also studying his twin brother, Mark, who is also an astronaut, to compare the two.

NASA TV Wednesday morning and afternoon.

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