Spacewalking Time to Cross the 490-hour Mark

Sunita L. Williams (Commander, USN), the second woman of Indian origin after Kalpana Chawla to be selected by NASA for a space mission along with International Space Station Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria crossed the total spacewalking time outside the orbital laboratory past the 490-hour mark at full duration during their third spacewalk in nine days.

The unexampled series of three spacewalks were completed over the nine day period, from January 31 to February 8, the duration of the last being 6 hours 40 minutes ending at 3:06 p.m EST on Thursday. The three spacewalks are termed EVAs 6, 7, and 8 there being five previous station spacewalks from the U.S. airlock Quest during times when no shuttle was present.

The magnificent space walk mission included removing and jettisoning two large shrouds and installing attachments for cargo carriers. The previous two expeditions targeted on permanentness cooling system and station power.

The first worksite of these NASA astronauts outside the international Space Station (ISS) was a pair of rotary joint motor controllers where they landed their equipment cart known as Crew Equipment Translational Aid (CETA) along the main back belt of the ISS on Port 3 (P3) attempting to remove protective thermal covers from a pair of rotary joint motor controllers.

Then they tossed quilt sized thermal sheets and arranged attachment devices for a future spare parts platform. Their job also included complete wiring up of a station power transfer system enabling longer trips for space shuttles and saving up on their own fuel cells.

On February 4, 2007 i.e. at the end of the second spacewalk, Sunita Williams set the record for the amount of time spent in space by a woman, this being her fourth spacewalk. The previous record was 21 hours, and the new record is 22 hours and 27 minutes.

Astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria also broke the U.S. record for most time walking in space on Thursday completing his ninth spacewalk.

The 41 year old Sunita Williams had her first space experience on December 12, 2006 on a US space shuttle, Discovery, along with a crew of 7 members which was a successful 13 day expedition.

Lisa Nowak, an astronaut with NASA and also one of the 7 member’s crew of Discovery who was arrested on February 5, 2007 at Orlando International Airport on charges of attempted kidnapping and murder of a romantic rival.

The three spacewalks by the U.S veterans and a Russian spacewalk on Feb. 22 by Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin will record for the most ever done by the station crew members during such a short period in the history of NASA and will mark a record breaking five spacewalks in all for Expedition 14.