Atlantis Astronauts Wrap Up 238th U.S. Spacewalk

The second of three spacewalks planned by the Atlantis astronauts at the International Space Station is in the history books.

The 238th spacewalk for the U.S. space program lasted seven hours and nine minutes as mission specialists Steve Bowen and Mike Good replaced four decade-old station batteries, anchored a spare U.S. communications antenna to an outpost truss and fixed a stray cable that jammed the shuttle's inspection boom during a heat-shield survey earlier this week.

The excursion was the 145th to be conducted in the assembly and maintenance of the station, the first two building blocks of which were linked in low Earth orbit in late 1998. Total time tallied in those outings: 908 hours and seven minutes.

The two spacewalks carried out so far by the Atlantis astronauts added up to 14 hours and 34 minutes.

It was the fifth spacewalk for Bowen, who now has tallied 34 hours and 30 minutes working outside the station.

Good now has accumulated 23 hours and seven minutes of spacewalking work at the station and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Good and mission specialist Garrett Reisman will perform the last planned spacewalk of the mission on Friday.