Fifth spacewalk completed

Astronauts on shuttle 'Endeavour' have created a new record of spacewalks in a single shuttle-station flight. In the spacewalk, they attached the shield inspection boom to the space station.

Last night two astronauts, Michael Foreman and Robert Behnken came out of the shuttle for the last time to complete the left over work in the mission.

This is a big accomplishment as the astronauts have successfully carried out five spacewalks and attached a 50 foot long heat shield inspection boom on the space station's solar power truss, for use by the next station assembly crew.

This crew had many objectives, out of which one was to assemble Canadian-built robotic maintenance man, Dextre. Its assembly was successfully completed in the third spacewalk.

Apart from this, they had to attach the inspection boom to the space station as the next shuttle mission, ‘Discovery’, won’t be having enough space for it. ‘Discovery’, scheduled to fly in May this year, is planned to carry the enormous Japenese lab, Kibo.

"You're the Gladiator, Mike. You both are." said astronaut Richard Linnehan from inside and also played a five-second sound clip from the movie.

The extension sensor-studded boom was used to scan Endeavour's heat shield to ensure it was safe for next week's re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere.

It is a routine process followed by every shuttle crew that's flown since the Columbia disaster. This shield protects the ship from the large amount of heat, which is produced when the shuttle enters the Earth’s atmosphere and has the potential of damaging it.

A thermal cover and an extra power cord has been attached to the boom's instrument package to keep its lasers and cameras warm for the next two months before the shuttle ‘Discovery’, takes over its charge.

They also inspected the jammed rotating solar joint and found that it's filled with metal shavings because of grinding parts. This joint has to continuously rotate 360 degrees to keep the solar wings always pointing toward the sun.

Behnken was successful in hanging some experiments to European lab, Columbus' hull. He was unable to do it in the third walk because of some interference. He got the connector pins in with the help of a hammer.

The shuttle Endeavour had left from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 11 and is scheduled to land back on Earth on Wednesday evening at 2301 GMT