Astronauts mounted a difficult and dangerous emergency spacewalk today to repair a damaged solar panel jeopardizing the International Space Station.

Wearing protective spacesuits, Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock ventured out of the station orbiting about 215 miles above the East Coast just past 6 a.m. to begin the unprecedented job.

"Go out there and fix that thing for us," space station commander Peggy Whitson radioed just before the pair left the safety of station's airlock. "We will," Parazynski replied.

With Wheelock positioned at the base of the giant solar array, Parazynski anchored his feet to the end of a 25-foot boom attached to the station's 58-foot-long robot arm, which slowly carried him on 45-minute trip half a football field away to the damaged panel.

Once there, Parazynski assessed the full extent of the damage for the first time, describing a tangle of wires, hinge pins and grommets in an area that was mangled when the solar panel was deployed on Tuesday. The panel suffered two tears, the largest of which is about 2 1/2 feet.

The spacewalk is considered unusually risky because Parazynski ventured farther away from the safe parts of the station than ever before. The repairs are also unusually complicated, especially since the astronauts were not able to fully assess the extent of the damage before getting close to the array.

But without the repairs, the damaged solar wing could become structurally unstable, posing a hazard to the international outpost. In addition, without the panel, the station would not have enough power to continue building the facility, which could force a postponement of the installation of the next component, a European laboratory.

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