Spacewalk Ends After Tranquility Added To Station

The first of three planned spacewalks during Endeavour's stay at the International Space Station now is in the history books and the U.S. Tranquility module -- along with an Italian-built observation deck -- are securely mated to the U.S segment of the outpost.

Endeavour mission specialists Bob Behnken and Nicholas Patrick spent 6 hours and 32 minutes working outside the international complex, the construction of which now is 98 percent complete.

The excursion was the 138 spacewalk performed in the assembly and maintenance of the station, the first two building blocks of which were linked in low Earth orbit in late 1998. A total of 861 hours and 34 minutes of spacewalking work has been conducted during that stretch.

It was the fourth spacewalk for Behnken. He performed three excursions on the STS-123 mission in March 2008. His total time now is 25 hours and 51 minutes.

It was the first spacewalk for Patrick.

Click Read More to see a series of four NASA TV screen grabs captured while Behnken and Patrick were rigging up power and data cables between Tranquility and the U.S. Unity module:

Click on the images to enlarge them: