Image above: Mission Specialist Stan Love holds a failed control moment gyroscope while riding the International Space Station's robotic arm into space shuttle Atlantis' payload bay. Photo credit: NASA TV

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STS-122 astronauts finish final spacewalk

Astronauts Rex Walheim and Stanley Love completed the third STS-122 spacewalk at 3:32 p.m. EST today. The excursion lasted seven hours and 25 minutes.

In this final scheduled spacewalk of the mission, Walheim and Love installed two payloads on the exterior of the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory. The first, SOLAR, is an observatory that will monitor the sun for two years. The second is the European Technology Exposure Facility, which will carry nine experiments requiring exposure to the space environment.

With Mission Specialist Leland Melvin driving the space station's robotic arm, Love carried each of the experiment packages from space shuttle Atlantis’ payload bay to Columbus where the spacewalkers installed them.

Image above: A spacewalker attached to the station's robotic arm works outside the Columbus module on the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA TV

In addition, Walheim and Love – with the help of the station’s robot arm – moved a failed control moment gyroscope from its storage location on the station to the shuttle’s payload bay for return to Earth.
The spacewalkers examined a small divot on a handrail near the Quest airlock to collect data on whether it could be a possible source for glove damage on recent spacewalks. They also installed handrails on Columbus.

Pilot Alan Poindexter guided the spacewalkers from inside the orbiting complex.

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