CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Endeavour’s astronauts embarked on the fifth and final spacewalk of their mission Saturday, this time attaching a 50-foot inspection pole to the international space station for use by the next shuttle visitors.
Michael Foreman and Robert Behnken floated out the hatch late in the afternoon as the linked shuttle and station soared more than 200 miles above the Pacific Ocean. They spacewalked the night away, successfully accomplishing all their work.
The shuttle astronauts used the laser-tipped inspection boom at the beginning of their 16-day mission and again Friday night to check for any damage to their spaceship. It’s become a routine safety procedure ever since the 2003 Columbia crash.
Discovery won’t have room for a boom when it flies in May; the Japanese Kibo lab is so big it will take up the entire payload bay. So Endeavour’s astronauts left theirs behind.
Foreman and Behnken hooked an extra-long power cord to the inspection pole, to keep its lasers and cameras warm for the next two months, then secured the boom to the outside of the space station.
With the boom work quickly done, the spacewalkers turned to other chores. They inspected a jammed joint that has restricted use of a set of solar wings for months, and succeeded in hanging some scientific experiments to the European lab, Columbus.
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