Station Project Tops 1,000 Spacewalking Hours

The 15-nation consortium operating the International Space Station just passed a significant milestone: Astronauts and cosmonauts now have performed more than 1,000 hours of spacewalking work in the assembly and maintenance of the orbiting outpost.

The mark was passed at 5:02 a.m. EDT as Endeavour mission specialists Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff were in the midst of the 159th spacewalk carried out since the first two building blocks of the outpost were linked in low Earth orbit in late 1998.

Fincke and Chamitoff at the time were equipping a newly delivered boom with a grapple fixture that will enable it to operate as an extension of the station's 57.5-foot robot arm. The boom will extend the arm's reach by 50 feet.