Second spacewalk a successful Endeavour

January 17, 1996
Web posted at: 10:10 a.m EST

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston (CNN) -- Two astronauts spent more than six and a half hours Wednesday in the second spacewalk of the shuttle Endeavour's mission. (374K QuickTime movie) Mission specialists Winston Scott and Leroy Chiao tested more construction equipment and techniques in preparation for the building of an international space station.

The spacewalkers got a late start, but they were able to complete most of their tasks. (196K AIFF sound or 196K WAV sound)

Among the tests performed during the extravehicular activity, or EVA, was to see how well Scott's space suit protected him from extreme cold. For 35 minutes, he stood in the shadow of Endeavour as the shuttle was pointed toward deep space in a pass over the Pacific Ocean. The temperature hovered at 100 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Scott pronounced the suit comfortable thanks to heating devices in the gloves and toe caps of the boots.

"I'm very, very pleased," Scott said. "If I felt that comfortable standing still, I think I'd have been even warmer being busy."

Wednesday's spacewalk, the 32nd EVA in shuttle history, was the last major item on the astronauts' agenda. Endeavour is to return to earth on Saturday. There was a chance the landing would have to be moved up by a day because ice had clogged a cooling system. But immediately after the spacewalk, the crew was able to melt the ice and flush it from the system.

Both of the mission's EVA's were practice sessions for the building of a space station, which is expected to take five years to complete. Construction will take hundreds of hours of such spacewalks.

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AP contributed to this report.