Mission Specialist Richard Linnehan checks out the spacesuits in the Quest airlock prior to the third spacewalk of the STS-123 mission, 17 Mar 2008

Astronauts visiting the International Space Station have begun a spacewalk to install more equipment on the station's new robot, which is designed to assist them and eventually take over some of their work.

Two crewmembers of the shuttle Endeavour began the work late Monday. During the spacewalk, they will attach tools and cameras to the Canadian robot, called Dextre.

The spacewalk is the third of Endeavour's 12-day stay at the space station. On an earlier spacewalk, astronauts attached a storage compartment for a Japanese laboratory that is scheduled to by delivered by another space shuttle in May.

During a fourth spacewalk scheduled for Thursday, astronauts plan to test a new procedure for repairing damaged heat-shielding tiles.

Some information for this report was provided by and Reuters.