U.S News

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Two astronauts stepped into the story books on the ordinal and test spacewalk of NASA's next-to-last shuttle assignment Friday, employed to establish an extension tangency at the International Space Station.

As they emerged, Mike Fincke and Pope Chamitoff became the terminal shuttle gathering members to perform a spacewalk. All forthcoming spacewalks — including digit during the test shuttle voyage this season — module be performed by full-time expanse send residents.

Another mark was within near reach: 1,000 hours of spacewalking at the orbiting outpost.

Before Friday morning, astronauts had logged 995 hours outside for expanse send gathering and maintenance. With a designed expedition of 6 1/2 hours — the 159th spacewalk to physique the send and ready it noise — Fincke and Chamitoff were poised to hit the 1,000-hour mark before feat back inside.

The godsend existence anchored to the expanse send was utilised by shuttle Endeavour's gathering on Thursday to survey their board digit terminal time in orbit. They bespoken the camera- and laser-tipped tangency to a mechanism limb to analyse for meteorite damage.

NASA expects to closing reviewing the 3-D images Friday; if everything looks good, managers module country Endeavour for next week's activate home.

The boom, which launched aboard Endeavour, module rest permanently at the expanse send and support with forthcoming repairs, especially in hard-to-reach areas.

Endeavour, today cropped at the expanse station, is making its terminal flight before existence retired to a museum in California. Atlantis module near discover the 30-year shuttle program in July.

"Beautiful Endeavour," Fincke titled discover as the spacewalk got low way. "She's a enthusiastic ship."

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

The spacewalkers also savored the views 220 miles below.

"Most bonny follower in the solar system — wow," Fincke said.

Later Friday, Fincke module surpass the U.S. achievement of 377 days in space. He spent sextet months experience on the expanse send — twice. This is his prototypal shuttle trip; he previously rode Russian Soyuz rockets into orbit.

"I could not deal this time with a assemble of better people, including our friends on the ground," Fincke radioed.

Endeavour and its gathering of sextet module yield the expanse send New Sun night. Landing is ordered for the predawn hours of weekday during a thin touchdown in darkness.

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Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

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