Russians complete successful spacewalk

Two cosmonauts are safely back inside the International Space Station's Pirs airlock after completing a spacewalk ahead of schedule.

Expedition 26 flight engineers Dmitry Kondratyev and Oleg Skripochka deployed an antenna and routed cabling to complete installation of an experimental high-speed data transmission system, retrieved two experiments and installed a camera on the Rassvet docking module.

Initial checkout showed the data transmission system and camera were functioning properly.

Planned to last six hours, the spacewalk took five hours and 23 minutes, officially ending at 2:52 p.m. EST. It was the 152nd spacewalk supporting station assembly and maintenance, totaling over 956 hours.

The same spacewalkers plan to return to work outside the station Feb. 16.