Feb 8 2007
From The Space Library
NASA astronauts Michael E. Lopez-Alegria and Sunita L. Williams undertook their third spacewalk outside the ISS in nine days. Over 6.5 hours, the astronauts accomplished their primary task—jettisoning two large thermal covers, folding them with smaller shrouds that had covered an electronics box, and tossing them away from the ISS, so that they would eventually burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. The astronauts also connected cables to a new system that would allow the ISS to share power with a docked orbiter; added a platform intended to hold a storage container; and photographed the docking port. Lopez-Alegria set a new U.S. spacewalking record of 61 hours and 22 minutes. The all-time record of more than 82 hours belonged to Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Y. Solovyov. Sunita L. Williams extended the spacewalking record she had set on 4 February to 29 hours and 17 minutes. The series of spacewalks that had begun on 31 January marked the first time that ISS crew had conducted three spacewalks within such a short time, without a Space Shuttle docked at the ISS.
Mike Schneider, “Astronaut Sets U.S. Spacewalking Record,” Associated Press, 9 February 2007.
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