spacetoday.net: ISS astronauts complete spacewalk

Posted: Fri, Nov 2, 2012, 7:33 AM ET (1133 GMT)
ISS EVA on 2012 November 1 (NASA)

Two International Space Station astronauts venture outside the station for more than six and a half hours Thursday to support efforts to isolate an ammonia leak in a radiator. Suni Williams and Aki Hoshide completed their 6-hour, 38-minute spacewalk at 3:07 pm EDT (1907 GMT), working on a radiator on the P6 segment of the station's truss. The two rerouted ammonia coolant to a spare radiator to see if that stops a leak of ammonia that has been detected from that radiator. If the leak stops, station managers will decide whether to leave the system in place like it is or replace the faulty radiator; additional troubleshooting will be needed if the leak continues. The spacewalk was the seventh for Williams, whose 50 hours and 40 minutes of cumulative EVA time is the most for a female astronaut. Hoshide was on his third EVA, and 21 hours and 23 minutes of total spacewalk time is a record for a Japanese astronaut.