NASA astronauts successfully complete 209th spacewalk outside space station

New Delhi: Expedition 55 Flight Engineers Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel of NASA successfully completed the fourth spacewalk of the year outside the International Space Station on Thursday, March 29.

The two astronauts began their spacewalk at 9:33 a.m. EDT, about an hour behind schedule, lasting 6 hours, 10 minutes.

The duo installed wireless communications equipment on the station’s Tranquility module to enhance payload data processing for the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) experiment being flown to the station on a future SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft. They replaced high-definition video cameras on the port truss of the station’s backbone and remove aging hoses from a cooling component on the station’s truss.

The US space agency shared the glimpse of the spacewalk on Twitter: 

RIGHT NOW: Two humans are working in the vacuum of space to complete today’s #spacewalk, which began at 9:33am ET. Watch them outside @Space_Station live: https://t.co/ZuxLDtzW9c pic.twitter.com/HoXPbFWZ8b

— NASA (@NASA) March 29, 2018

2 humans have been working in space for 4hrs and 25 minutes now. How’s your office been? Watch live as today’s #spacewalk wraps up https: https://t.co/mzKW5uV4hS

Image Credit: @OlegMKS pic.twitter.com/4hAPas2wFE — NASA (@NASA) March 29, 2018

Talk about a picture worth a thousand words...@Astro_Ricky was viewed suspended from a @Space_Station robotic arm capturing HD images of the HD camera capturing him! Watch live as he finishes up today’s #spacewalk with @Astro_Feustel: https://t.co/ZuxLDtzW9c pic.twitter.com/mL9jcAEMVI — NASA (@NASA) March 29, 2018

Veteran spacewalkers @Astro_Feustel and @Astro_Ricky completed the 209th spacewalk in support of @Space_Station assembly and maintenance at 3:43pm ET today, lasting 6 hours, 10 minutes. Details: https://t.co/FW0jQiTM8I pic.twitter.com/mVyXSejUvt — NASA (@NASA) March 29, 2018

This happens to be the 209th spacewalk in support of International Space Station assembly, maintenance and upgrades. It was seventh spacewalk for Feustel and the third for Arnold.

The astronauts are recent additions to the crew of the orbiting space station, arriving on March 23 with Russian crewmate Oleg Artemyev aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.

Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 54 days and 10 hours working outside the station in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory.