NASA has efficiently accomplished its second spacewalk of the 12 months on the Worldwide Area Station (ISS).

NASA astronaut Nicole Mann and Japan’s Koichi Wakata of NASA counterpart JAXA spent 6 hours and 41 minutes outdoors the orbital outpost on Thursday earlier than returning inside at 2:26 p.m. ET.

The pair have been capable of full their foremost activity of ending the development of a mounting platform for a rollout photo voltaic array, and so they additionally put in cables for the arrays. The duties are a part of ongoing work to improve the station’s energy provide.

4 arrays have been put in to this point, and two extra can be mounted to the put in platforms throughout future spacewalks.

As traditional, NASA livestreamed the whole spacewalk utilizing cameras mounted to the astronauts’ helmets and in addition to the station itself. Reside audio feeds from the astronauts was additionally offered, together with a commentary from Mission Management that defined what the pair have been doing. NASA later shared a number of clips on social media.

Right here we see Nicole Mann rising from the station to start the spacewalk:

This clip reveals Mann and Wakata engaged on the set up of the mounting platform:

Right here’s a transparent shot of each astronauts at work throughout the spacewalk:

This clip provides a wonderful view of Earth some 250 miles beneath:

Wakata later tweeted: “It was an incredible day of spacewalk! Honor to work with the whole EVA group that put collectively the wonderful ops plan and executed it. Thanks!”

This was the 259th spacewalk in help of area station meeting, upgrades, and upkeep because the station began working greater than 20 years in the past.

Mann and Wakata arrived on the ISS in October as a part of SpaceX’s Crew-5. This was solely their second spacewalk, with each embarking on their first journey outdoors the station on January 20. The present area mission is the fifth for Wakata and the primary for Mann, who with October’s flight turned the primary Native American lady to achieve orbit.