Sixth Longest Spacewalk in History Complete

Astronauts Drew Feustel and Mike Fincke completed an eight hour, seven minute spacewalk at 10:12 a.m. EDT, the 6th longest spacewalk in history. They completed all planned tasks, including refilling one of the station’s cooling loops with ammonia and lubricating one of the station’s massive solar alpha rotary joints.

This was the second of the four STS-134 spacewalks, for a mission total of 14 hours 26 minutes. It was the 246th spacewalk conducted by U.S. astronauts, the 116th from space station airlocks, and the 157th in support of space station assembly and maintenance, totaling 988 hours, 19 min. It was Feustel's fifth spacewalk for a total time of 35 hours and 24 minutes; he is 30th on the all-time list. It was Fincke's seventh spacewalk for a total time of 34 hours and 19 minutes; he is 32nd on the all-time list.

NASA Television will air a mission status briefing with STS-134 Lead Flight Director Derek Hassmann and STS-134 Lead Spacewalk Officer Allison Bolinger to discuss the spacewalk. The briefing was scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. but likely will be delayed.

Astronauts in Last Phase of Training for Mission

The six astronauts who will fly space shuttle Endeavour on its last scheduled mission are moving through the last phases of training as launch day nears. The crew is at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week for the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test known as TCDT. The work culminates with a dress rehearsal of launch day for the astronauts and the whole launch team. Endeavour, standing on Launch Pad 39A, is set up exactly as it will be for liftoff and the crew takes their assigned seats.

"This is the time when our training meets the processing of the vehicle," Commander Mark Kelly told news media during a news conference this morning. The event took place indoors instead of its traditional setting at the launch pad because of poor weather conditions at Kennedy.

Describing the mission's payload, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, as one of the premiere scientific instruments of the 21st century, Kelly said the 15,000-pound physics experiment has to potential to rewrite humanity's knowledge of the cosmos as it measures cosmic rays from a perch on the International Space Station.

"We're pretty excited about what the results are going to be," Kelly said. "(AMS Physicist and Nobel Laureate Sam Ting) told us that within an hour of attaching to the space station, they're going to start collecting data. AMS could be teaching us things about the universe that are completely unexpected."

Mission Specialist Mike Finke, a veteran station commander and resident, said the crew is ready for the two-week shuttle flight.

"We're a team, we're a family and from what we've seen so far, I don't think there's anything out there we can't handle," Finke said. "When we have our game on, this is an amazing crew."