Space walkers complete orbiting wiring work

Two spacewalking astronauts have finished a critical wiring job on the international space station.

Andrew Thomas and Paul Richards took on the work that was left undone during Sunday's record-breaking nine-hour spacewalk by two other astronauts.

It was the second and final outing of shuttle Discovery's delivery mission.

The wiring - which involved hooking up a bundle of delicate fibre-optic connectors - was considered the most difficult task of the two spacewalks.

These cables and others had to be joined for power and data to flow to the massive robot arm that will be delivered to the space station next month.

Mission Control added two hours to Thomas and Richards' excursion, so everything could be completed.

The men got a late start and did not exit the shuttle until well after 0500 GMT.

Richards was thrilled to use the power tool that he designed almost 10 years ago for the first Hubble Space Telescope repair mission.

"Well, I designed it, hoping to use it some day, and today's the day," he said.