Nov 21, 2009, 21:01 GMT
Washington - All's well that ends well: Two NASA astronauts finished the second spacewalk of the Atlantis mission on Saturday with time to spare, despite a delayed start.
Astronauts Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik finished not only the assigned tasks but also got head on some other projects during their six-hour-eight-minute venture outside the International Space Station.
Bresnik had every reason to be a bit nervous. He and wife Rebecca are awaiting the birth of his first biological child, which was slated to be induced possibly on Friday or Saturday, space.com reported.
Bresnik and his wife initially thought they could not have a biological child, then got pregnant soon after adopting a son, now 3 and a half, from Ukraine, space.com reported.
The spacewalk was delayed by more than an hour by a false alarm aboard the ISS. The alarm woke up both crews two hours after they went to sleep and warned them of a drop in pressure. This caused the ventilation system to shut down automatically, which in turn activated a fire alarm.
NASA said there was no danger to the astronauts, but decided to delay the spacewalk for an hour to give the crew time to get more sleep.
Flight director Jerry Jason said there had been another false alarm on Thursday. Blame was put on problems with the Russian module that is part of the station.
Foreman and Bresnik mounted a new antenna on the ISS, and hardware for later storage of backup parts and supplies. Their tasks also included installing part of a project to monitor ships at sea, and a separate device to measure the electric charge on the space station in its interaction with plasma in orbit.
After the Atlantis mission, only five more shuttle flights to the ISS remain before the programme is retired in 2010, and there is a rush to maximize the heavy lifting capability of the shuttle to ferry backup supplies to the orbiting station.
The final spacewalk of the mission is slated for Monday. Atlantis is to disembark on Tuesday and arrive back on Earth next Friday.
Among the equipment it will have delivered are Gyroscopes that help keep the ISS at the proper altitude in space; an extra hand for the station's robotic arm; a gas tank for providing oxygen to the airlock during spacewalks; parts for the station's cooling system.
NASA is at work on developing the next generation spacecraft with an eye on returning humans to the moon or travelling to Mars and beyond. But full support for the plans is still pending in the halls of government.
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