Astronauts complete successful spacewalk

Spacewalking astronauts performed more repair work on a jammed joint at the international space station, keeping a tight grip on all their tools so nothing would get away this time.

A $100,000 (€79,849) tool bag was lost during the first spacewalk of the mission two days ago.

To everyone’s relief, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Shane Kimbrough deftly stepped through their work without any mishaps.

They had double- and triple-checked their equipment before venturing out to make certain everything was tied down.

As they packed up their tools to go back inside, Ms Stefanyshyn-Piper said: “Hopefully, I won’t lose anything on the way.”

She didn’t. Mission Control and astronauts inside the space station complimented the astronauts on the spacewalk, which lasted six hours, 45 minutes.

There were two small hitches at the end: Mr Kimbrough had elevated levels of carbon dioxide in his spacesuit and also had trouble communicating with Mission Control. Neither problem put the astronaut in jeopardy.

“Welcome back,” said Endeavour commander Christopher Ferguson. “Outstanding job.”

Ms Stefanyshyn-Piper’s tool bag slipped away on Tuesday after one of the grease guns inside exploded and got bits of the dark gray stuff everywhere. She later owned up to making a mistake by not checking to make sure the bag was secured.

With two grease guns lost in space, only two remained for all the repair work, each with a different type of nozzle to reach different parts of the clogged solar wing-rotating joint. That meant Ms Stefanyshyn-Piper and Mr Kimbrough had to share the remaining grease guns and other tools.

The spacewalk – the second of four planned for shuttle Endeavour’s visit – fell on the 10th anniversary of the space station.