This story was updated at 5:18 p.m. ET.
Two astronauts raced through the second spacewalk of their
docked shuttle mission at the International Space Station Saturday, getting so
far ahead of schedule they took on jobs scheduled for future excursions.
"Today was fantastic," said lead flight director
Brian Smith in a briefing following the spacewalk. "We got everything we
wanted to get done accomplished, and a few more things as well."
STS-129 astronauts Mike Foreman, a veteran spacewalker, and
Randy Bresnik, making his first-ever foray outside of a spacecraft, finished
their spacewalk in about six hours, completing station maintenance work and
installing two cargo-stowage fixtures on the outside
of the space station.
"Other than seeing my wife
for the first time, I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful sight,"
Bresnik said after exiting the station's airlock and viewing planet Earth below
him.
Baby watch
The sight wasn't the only first for Bresnik today. While he
was spacewalking, Bresnik's wife, Rebecca, was laboring to give birth to his
first daughter, the couple's second child. The astronaut agreed with
Mission Control to delay news about the baby until after the spacewalk had been
completed, so he could concentrate on the challenging task at hand. Though
after the space venture finished the baby had still not yet been born.
"The Bresnik launch countdown clock has got some unpredictable
and variable holds in it," Smith said. "We certainly wish them all
the best and hope that soon their baby is born."
Smith said Bresnik was completely professional, and as a
NASA astronaut and former Marine Corps fighter pilot, he had learned to
compartmentalize.
"He absolutely stayed 100 percent focused," Smith
said. "You can just look at the results of the spacewalk."
Getting ahead
The spacewalkers began their outing about half an hour late,
at 9:31 a.m. EST (1431 GMT), because of a
false alarm that woke the astronauts Friday evening. The erroneous warning
bell was the second in two nights, and mission managers think they might be
related to a new Russian module called Poisk that was installed recently on the
station.
The event delayed spacewalk preparations and forced NASA to
shorten the excursion from a planned 6 1/2 hours. Nonetheless, the astronauts
accomplished all they set out to do and more.
"They're really kicking butt on the timeline
here," said STS-129 commander Charlie Hobaugh from inside the station,
when the spacewalkers were about an hour ahead of schedule. "Great work,
you and Comrade both," he told Foreman, referring to Bresnik by his call
sign.
Hobaugh suggested the pair install a second cargo platform
point near where they attached the first one, after they had breezed through
that task. The spacewalkers were game, and Mission Control agreed to move
forward with the task, which was originally scheduled for the mission's third
spacewalk on Monday.
Foreman and Bresnik accomplished that some other minor
tasks, including installing a wireless video camera system and relocating a
piece of hardware on the outside of the station to make way for work on future
missions. The two spacewalkers returned back inside the station and locked the
hatch behind them, officially ending the outing at 3:39 p.m. EST (2039 GMT).
The event marked the fifth career spacewalk for Foreman, who
now has a total of 32 hours, 19 minutes of spacewalking time under his belt.
Bresnik, the rookie, clocked 6 hours, 8 minutes of spacewalking time today.
The shuttle crew plans to stay at the space station until
Wednesday, when they will undock and land aboard Atlantis on Friday, after
Thanksgiving. The STS-129 mission is an 11-day
space trip intended to supply the station with a load of spare parts to
prepare it for the era after the shuttles retire in about a year.
SPACE.com is providing complete coverage of Atlantis'
STS-129 mission to the International Space Station with Staff Writer Clara
Moskowitz and Managing Editor Tariq Malik based in New York. Click here for shuttle mission
updates and a link to NASA TV.
advertisement
