spacetoday.net: Shortened ISS spacewalk completed

Posted: Fri, Aug 16, 2002, 1:43 PM ET (1743 GMT)
ISS illustration (NASA)

An American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut conducted a delayed, shortened spacewalk outside the International Space Station Friday morning. Valery Korzun and Peggy Whitson started the four-hour, 25-minute spacewalk at 5:23 am EDT (0923 GMT) when they exited the Pirs module on the station. The start of the spacewalk was delayed by one hour and 43 minutes because of misconfigured oxygen valves in their spacesuits. Russian mission controllers elected not to extend the spacewalk beyond its original completion time, limiting the amount of work that could be completed during the EVA. Korzun and Whitson were able to complete the primary task of the spacewalk, the installation of six debris shields on the exterior of the Zvezda module that will protect it from micrometeoroid and orbital debris impacts. Additional tasks planned for the spacewalk — the refurbishment of an experiment on Zvezda hull as well as gathering samples of thruster residue — were put off until a future EVA. NASA officials said Friday morning it wasn’t yet known if Korzun and Sergei Treschev would perform those tasks on a second spacewalk currently scheduled for August 23.