Astronauts Make History On 4th, Final Spacewalk

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.(AP) -- Two astronauts made history Friday as the final spacewalkers of NASA's 30-year shuttle program, completing construction of the International Space Station with the smooth addition of an extension pole.

"Space station assembly is complete," space shuttle Endeavour's commander, Mark Kelly, announced once the 50-foot boom was securely latched.

Spacewalkers Mike Fincke and Gregory Chamitoff teamed up with robot arm operator Gregory Johnson to accomplish the job.

"Assembly complete. Amazing," Chamitoff said. "Boy, this is a big space station," he marveled several minutes later.

Fincke and Chamitoff became the last shuttle crew members to perform a spacewalk. All future spacewalks – including one during the final shuttle voyage this summer – will be performed by full-time space station residents.

Another milestone was achieved: 1,000 hours of spacewalking at the orbiting outpost.

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Before Friday morning, astronauts had logged 995 hours outside for space station assembly and maintenance. Fincke and Chamitoff hit the 1,000-hour mark five hours into their spacewalk, the 159th to build the station and keep it humming since 1998.

The space station's newly attached boom was used by shuttle Endeavour's astronauts Thursday to survey their ship for micrometeorite damage. NASA expects to finish reviewing the 3-D images Friday. If everything looks good, managers will clear Endeavour for next week's trip home.

The boom, which launched aboard Endeavour, will remain permanently at the space station and assist with future repairs, especially in hard-to-reach areas. Fincke and Chamitoff put an attachment on one end of the boom to fit the space station's robot arm, and disconnected the no-longer-needed laser sensors at its tip.

Besides the boom, the shuttle delivered a $2 billion particle physics detector that was placed on the station last week.

Endeavour, docked at the space station through this weekend, is making its last flight before being retired to a museum in California. Atlantis will close out the shuttle program in July.

"Beautiful Endeavour," Fincke called out as the spacewalk got under way. "She's a great ship."

"Looks like she belongs right there," Chamitoff agreed.

The spacewalkers also savored the views 220 miles below.

"Most beautiful planet in the solar system – wow," Fincke said.

Later Friday, Fincke will surpass the U.S. record of 377 days in space. He spent six months living on the space station – twice. This is his first shuttle trip; he previously rode Russian Soyuz rockets into orbit.

"I could not share this moment with a group of better people, including our friends on the ground," Fincke radioed.

Endeavour and its crew of six will leave the space station late Sunday night. Landing is set for the predawn hours of Wednesday during a rare touchdown in darkness.

While NASA's role in space station construction is over, the Russian Space Agency may add another chamber or two in years to come. The Russians also will continue to provide rides to and from the orbiting lab for U.S. astronauts until private companies in America are able to take over the job.

Comments

[Daniel Nolan]

05:13 PM on 05/29/2011

congrats guys...always wanted to do that...talk about a tough union to get into!outer space construction!

[gutteringdawn]

11:22 AM on 05/28/2011

Pathetic how little press this got. I would have watched this live if I'd had any idea it was happening.

Wait did Sarah Palin tweet something?!?? ALERT THE MEDIA!!!

[MikeyJaii]

09:46 AM on 05/28/2011

Landing on Mars and colonizing it, next step!

[Silence Dogoody]

03:22 AM on 05/31/2011

Not with Obama in office. He cancelled the program.

[John Mainstream]

09:36 AM on 05/27/2011

John Kennedy won the manned space race. Obama lost it.

[jsarets]

12:14 PM on 05/27/2011

We just finished building our part of a magnificent space station in collaboration with the Russians, the same people against whom we raced into space during the Cold War. The race is over, and it is abundantly clear that the future of space exploration will be heavily influenced by the same kind of international cooperation which made the International Space Station possible. We couldn't have done this without the Russians, and they couldn't have done it without NASA. George W. Bush cancelled the Space Shuttle program. He decided that Shuttle would finish up ISS assembly and then make way for a new generation of spacecraft. To his credit, this was the correct decision, and it still is, even though NASA totally botched the implementation the Vision of Space Exploration. Obama extended ISS through at least 2020 so we can get maximum return on our investment. Obama funded the groundbreaking Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program which produced the SpaceX Dragon and Orbital Sciences Cygnus spacecraft. Obama cancelled the redundant and overpriced Ares I launch vehicle which struggled to duplicate the same capabilities we already have with Delta IV Heavy. These are all excellent decisions. The only thing he did wrong was initially cancel the objective of lunar exploration, but recent developments indicate that lunar exploration is back on the agenda. The Muslim outreach thing was also a silly and peculiar issue, but that can safely be disregarded as a bizarre rhetorical flop that doesn't affect anything. The optics of the coming gap in government-run human spaceflight (as opposed to the commercial solutions which will arrive sooner) are not so great for Obama, but there's nothing he could have done about that. Constellation was already years behind schedule when he was inaugurated. Under the most optimistic (probably too optimistic) projections, the first manned flight would have been in 2018. Under the new plan, the first manned flight has slipped into 2019. But the new plan has a much greater chance of success, whereas Constellation had some pretty serious problems that made cancellation seem almost inevitable. It was simply a matter of whether to change course now or wait until it crashed and burned on its own. If Obama hadn't stepped in, any time we spent going down the rabbit hole of Constellation before it ultimately imploded would probably have been tacked onto "the gap". This was some crucial damage limitation.

[beasteben]

01:14 PM on 05/27/2011

knowledge seems to be pretty powerful! Plus, Butters always helps. 1 sir.