spacetoday.net: Spacewalkers complete marathon second spacewalk

Posted: Mon, May 23, 2011, 6:39 AM ET (1039 GMT)
STS-134: EVA #2 (NASA)

Astronauts spent over eight hours outside the International Space Station on Sunday carrying out several tasks, including dealing with balky covers on a space station joint. Andrew Feustel and Mike Fincke completed the spacewalk, lasting eight hours and seven minutes, at 10:12 am EDT (1412 GMT) Sunday. The biggest challenge during the spacewalk was to remove several covers surrounding a joint that allows the solar arrays on the station's port truss to rotate. The covers were harder to remove than anticipated, and during the work one bolt was lost. Flight controllers decided to have the astronauts remove four of the covers instead of six in order to get access to the joint and lubricate it. That work was completed, although one of the covers was returned to the airlock to be replaced on a future spacewalk. The spacewalkers also topped off ammonia in a cooling loop that was suffering a small leak and perform maintenance on the Dextre robotic manipulator. Also on Sunday the station's crew perform a change-of-command ceremony as Dmitry Kondratyev handed command of the station to Andrey Borisenko. Kondratyev, along with Paolo Nespoli and Cady Coleman, will board a Soyuz spacecraft and undock from the station on Monday to return to Earth.