Washington: With a six-hour, 40-minute stroll, Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams achieved yet another milestone - the first woman in history to have logged a record 29 hours and 17 minutes in four space walks.
Venturing out of her home in space with Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria at 1854 hrs (IST) on Thursday, Williams came back to the International Space Station at 0136 hrs (IST) on Friday after completing the last of an unprecedented three space walks in nine days.
Logging 22 hours and 37 minutes outside the station with her three walks Dec 16, January 31 and February 4, she had already bettered Kathy Thornton's previous 21-hour time record in as many excursions.
With a total of 61 hours and 22 minutes from nine space walks, Commander Lopez-Alegria also Thursday surpassed Jerry Ross' US record of 58 hours and 18 minutes over the same number of outings. Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyov holds the world record of more than 77 and a half hour over 16 space walks.
Apart from setting personal landmarks, flight engineer Williams and Lopez-Alegria in their Thursday walk packed up two large blankets and covers no longer needed to keep gear warm and then jettisoned them into space.
"You did an excellent job," space walk coordinator Chris Looper at Mission Control told the space duo as they completed the most intense work the US space agency NASA has attempted on the station without a shuttle crew present.
"It's a beautiful day," said Williams as she floated out of the station's hatch at 1856 hrs (IST) on Thursday to begin her fourth space walk, a record number for a woman, 34 minutes earlier than planned.
Their main job was removing and discarding sun shields no longer needed to keep equipment warm. NASA had changed the station's orientation to the sun and the shrouds could have caused heat to build up and damage the systems.
Williams and Lopez-Alegria folded the bulky covers into two bundles, which on earth would have weighed nine kg, and tossed them to burn up on reentry into the atmosphere.
"I can throw it right at the sun," Lopez-Alegria joked.
"Pretty nice," said Williams, watching the shield float away.
The astronauts then finished connecting a power cable to allow visiting shuttles to tap into the station's electrical system and stay about three days longer than before. They also worked on a cargo holder needed for future missions.
During the two previous space walks, they had hooked up a new cooling system for the $100-billion multinational station.
Thursday's space walk was the 80th for station assembly and maintenance. It was the 52nd from the station and the 32nd from Quest airlock.
On Feb 22, Lopez-Alegria and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin are scheduled to do a space walk in Russian Orlan suits from the Pirs airlock. They will work on an antenna of the Progress 23 un-piloted cargo carrier, docked at the aft port of the Zvezda service module.
The antenna did not properly retract when that spacecraft docked in October. The space walkers will try to secure or remove the antenna to avoid its interfering with the undocking of Progress 23 in April.
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