The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) flawlessly completed a spacewalk Tuesday morning, preparing their orbital home for a new cargo ship and retrieving experiments attached to its hull.
ISS Expedition 9 commander Gennady Padalka and NASA ISS Science Officer Michael Fincke are safely back inside the space station after a 4.5-hour spacewalk that found them consistently ahead of schedule and so eager to work that ground controllers repeatedly urged them to take breaks and enjoys the scenery.
"It's a great view," Fincke said during a rest early in the activity as he watched the sun rise during one of the spacecraft's 90-minute orbit of the planet.
The spacewalk was the third extravehicular activity (EVA) for the Expedition 9 crew and began when Padalka and Fincke opened the outer hatch of the station's Pirs Docking Compartment at 2:58 a.m. EDT (0658 GMT) Tuesday morning. By the spacewalk's end at 7:28 a.m. EDT (1128 GMT), the astronauts had completed all of their EVA tasks.