US Astronauts Complete Space Walk

Mission Specialist Richard Linnehan checks out the spacesuits in the Quest airlock prior to the third spacewalk of the STS-123 mission, 17 Mar 2008
Astronauts at the International Space Station have finished installing a Canadian robotic device to help with future maintenance and construction at the orbiting facility.

Two crew members of the U.S. shuttle Endeavour took a seven-hour space walk to assemble the robotic maintenance man, called Dextre, which is attached to the end of the space station’s crane.

Astronauts also set up scientific experiments for various nations, though difficulties with one project saw it returned to the loading bay instead of being installed on the outside of the station.

The spacewalk is the third of Endeavour’s 12-day stay at the space station. On an earlier spacewalk, astronauts attached a storage compartment for a Japanese laboratory scheduled to by delivered by another space shuttle in May.

During a fourth spacewalk, scheduled for Thursday, astronauts plan to test a new procedure for repairing damaged heat-shielding tiles.

Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

by VOA News

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