Friday, May 27, 2011

STS134: Final Shuttle Spacewalk

Spacewalking.

Astronauts Chamitoff and Fincke completed the 4th and last spacewalk for the STS134 mission last night. Even as Early as I get up, the walk was already over and the suits were being stored as I quickly turned on NASA TV. Thanks to NASA TV, I'll be able to watch the highlights of the EVA later today. With no spacewalks planned during STS135, this concludes shuttle program EVAs for the ISS.

The spacewalkers stowed away the boom extension for the CanadArm2, and placed another grapple and power fixture point on the station so the arm can have greater reach along the truss. Once several other smaller procedures were completed, they headed for the airlock.

According to NASA figures, the astronauts reached a special milestone during the EVA. There have now been over 1,000 hours of EVA spent building and maintaining the International Space Station, shared between the United States and Russia primarily. It was the 118th time astronauts have used the ISS airlocks. No doubt there will be many more as the shuttles end their trips to ISS and will not be able to bring up supplies and crews.

Today also marks a special notice for astronaut Mike Fincke, who now stands at nine spacewalks and 48 hours in EVA. Today he will pass the 377 day record of time in space set by Peggy Whitson. Go Mike!

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