Mission Specialists Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik work outside the International Space Station during the second spacewalk of the STS-129 mission. Photo credit: NASA TV

Astronauts complete second spacewalk

STS-129 Mission Specialists Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik wrapped up a successful six-hour, eight-minute spacewalk after completing their scheduled tasks ahead of schedule.

Official end of the spacewalk was at 3:39 p.m. EST. It was the second of the three scheduled during Atlantis’ visit to the International Space Station.

The start was a little later than planned, about 9:30 a.m., because a false depressurization alarm had sounded on the station at 9:53 p.m. Friday, interrupting the crews’ sleep and the spacewalkers’ campout in the Quest airlock.
The spacewalkers completed the process of reducing the nitrogen in their blood by exercising while breathing oxygen.

Foreman and Bresnik installed an antenna assembly on a Columbus module handrail, relocated the station’s floating potential measurement unit to the Port 1 truss and deployed a second Payload Attachment System (PAS) on the upper part of the Starboard 3 (S3) truss.

After completing the installation of a wireless video system on S3 an hour ahead of schedule, the spacewalkers had time to perform a get-ahead task. Foreman and Bresnik deployed a third PAS, this one on the Earth-facing side of S3. This task, originally schedule for the mission’s third spacewalk, was accomplished smoothly and quickly.

Just before the beginning of the Saturday spacewalk, Express Logistics Carrier 2 was installed on S3 by the station’s robotic arm, operated by Mission Specialists Leland Melvin and Nicole Stott, KE5GJN. It holds almost 10,000 pounds of large spares for the station, including an attitude-control gyroscope, a high-pressure oxygen tank and a pump module.

A sister cargo carrier, ELC 1, also came to the station on Atlantis and was installed Thursday.