spacetoday.net: STS-132 astronauts complete first spacewalk

Posted: Tue, May 18, 2010, 7:12 AM ET (1112 GMT)
STS-132: EVA #1 (NASA)

Two Atlantis astronauts spent over seven hours outside the International Space Station on Monday installing a new communications antenna and performing other work. Garrett Reisman and Steve Bowen spent seven hours and 25 minutes outside the station, nearly an hour longer than planned, during a spacewalk that started at 7:54 am EDT (1154 GMT) Monday. The two installed a spare Ku-band antenna for the station and a spare parts platform for the Canadian robot arm unit Dextre. They also loosened bolts on six large replacement batteries that will be installed on the station during the next two spacewalks. The EVA was briefly interrupted by a computer glitch that caused a power loss to some station equipment, including video cameras used to guide the station's robotic arm, until a backup computer took over. On Tuesday astronauts will use the shuttle and station's robotic arms to install a new module, the Russian Mini-Research Module-1, or Rassvet, module to the station.