Atlantis astronauts complete second spacewalk of mission

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. astronauts Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik wrapped up the second space walk for space shuttle Atlantis's STS-129 mission on Saturday, NASA said.

U.S. astronauts Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik wrapped up the second space  walk for space shuttle Atlantis's STS-129 mission on Saturday, NASA said. This is a file photo of Astronaut Robert L. Satcher Jr. works outside the Inte- rnational Space Station as he participates in Space Shuttle Atlantis' first spacewalk of mission STS-129 as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station in this photo released by NASA and taken November 19, 2009.(Xinhua/Reuters File Photo)

The start of the space walk, which lasted six hours and eight minutes, was a little later than planned, about 9:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT), because a false depressurization alarm had sounded on the station at 9:53 p.m. Friday (2:53 a.m. GMT Saturday), interrupting the crews' sleep and the space walkers' campout in the Quest airlock. The space walkers completed the process of reducing the nitrogen in their blood by exercising while breathing oxygen.

Foreman and Bresnik installed an antenna assembly on a Columbus module handrail, relocated the station's floating potential measurement unit to the Port 1 truss and deployed a second Payload Attachment System (PAS) on the upper part of the Starboard 3 (S3) truss.