CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Two Atlantis astronauts made fast work of a debut spacewalk from the International Space Station's new Quest airlock Saturday, taking time to stage a cosmic photo op after finishing up a successful week of construction work at the frontier outpost.
Perched nine stories above the nose of the visiting shuttle, Michael Gernhardt and James Reilly capped the historic first spacewalk from the $164 million airlock with a high-flying Kodak moment. Armed with a still camera, they took turns snapping celebratory pictures of each other atop the 17-story complex as they sped around the planet at 25 times the speed of sound.
| Undocking Sunday |
| The Atlantis astronauts will bid adieu to the crew of the International Space Station late Saturday before heading out on a two-day trip back to Earth. Click here for live coverage of the farewell ceremony, which is scheduled to begin at 9:59 p.m. EDT (0159 GMT Sunday). |
"Outstanding," Reilly said as he captured an image of his partner near the base of the station's massive U.S. solar arrays, which have a glimmering gold wingspan of 240 feet (73 meters)."Be sure to pass that camera around," shuttle skipper Steve Lindsey called out from the crew cabin of Atlantis.
"Actually, I'll tell you what," Gernhardt told Reilly. "The shot I want to get here is you looking down at the orbiter."
Striking a pose, Reilly replied: "Man, you sure have the sensation of speed up here, don't you?"
"You sure do," Gernhardt added.
The impromptu photo session came at the tail end of a four-hour, two-minute excursion during which a fourth and final gas tank was mounted on the outer shell of the 6.5-ton airlock.
Wielding the station's $600 million Canadian robot arm, outpost flight engineer Jim Voss hoisted the 1,200-pound (540-kilogram) nitrogen tank from a shuttle cargo bay pallet and lifted it within inches of berthing rails on the airlock.
Grabbing the hefty tank after it was released from the arm, Gernhardt and Reilly latched the cistern into place before struggling to hook hoses up to it.
But the job largely went as planned as Gernhardt and Reilly eventually opened up a manual isolation valve, jump-starting the flow of nitrogen into the airlock from the tank.
"We had a great leak check on the nitrogen tank," astronaut Dan Burbank reported from NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston. "We're in great shape."
Dubbed "doghouses" because of their size and shape, two oxygen and two nitrogen tanks replenish air supplies within the pressure chamber, which features a tunnel-like orbital portal and a suit-up room that doubles as a spacesuit servicing center.
Gernhardt became the first to float out of the portal at 12:39 a.m. EDT (0439 GMT) as Atlantis and the station made a sweeping pass over Pakistan.
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