Posted: Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 10:37 AM ET (1537 GMT)

Astronauts successfully completed a spacewalk outside the International Space Station Tuesday to replace a hand on the station's robotic arm. Mark Vande Hei and Scott Tingle spent nearly seven and a half hours outside the station on an EVA that started at 6:49am EST (1149 GMT). They replaced one of the "latching end effectors" on the Canadarm2 arm with a spare unit. The new hand initially was not communicating properly, but a reboot of the arm's electronics fixed the issue. Vande Hei and Norishige Kanai will perform a second spacewalk to complete the hand replacement work.