Tuesday, May 18, 2010

NASA Shuttle Atlantis: First EVA Complete

US astronauts completed Monday the first of three planned spacewalks from the shuttle Atlantis a day after the craft docked with the International Space Station.

Astronauts Garrett Reisman and Stephen Bowen finished the seven-hour, 25-minute spacewalk at 3:19 pm (1919 GMT) after installing a second space-to-ground communications antenna and a spare parts platform on Dexter, the two-armed robotic device on the orbiting ISS.

It was the 237th spacewalk by US astronauts, the second for Reisman and the fourth for Bowen, NASA said.

The pair meanwhile loosened battery bolts on the port-6 backbone segment of the station in preparation for the other spacewalks.

Atlantis brought to the station six new 375-pound (170-kilogram) batteries to be installed during the second and third spacewalks.

The shuttle and its crew of six successfully docked with the orbiting space lab on Sunday about 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the South Pacific.

The mission is the 32nd and final scheduled voyage for Atlantis, which first launched in 1985 and has logged some 115 million miles in its career.

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