IN WHAT was billed as NASA鈥檚 riskiest ever space walk, astronauts on the International Space Station successfully repaired a damaged solar panel on Saturday after spending 7 hours dangling on the end of a robotic arm. This was as far from an airlock as any astronaut has ever ventured 鈥� had any spacesuit malfunctioned, there might not have been enough time to make it back to safety.
Programme manager Wayne Hale called it 鈥渙ne of the most complex repair tasks that has ever been done in the agency鈥檚 history鈥�.
Previous daring spacewalks include a 1973 attempt by Skylab astronauts to repair launch damage to the station using makeshift tools to fix its one remaining solar wing panel, and the first three-person spacewalk to save a satellite called Intelsat, which had become stranded in low-Earth orbit in 1992.
Advertisement
The Return of the Space Shuttle 鈥� Learn more in our continuously updated .
