Astronauts repeat spacewalk to complete camera job

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Two Russian space station astronauts took a spacewalk Monday to complete a camera job left undone last month, but ran into new trouble.

Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy successfully installed one of two commercially provided cameras for Earth observations, a task requiring multiple power connections outside the International Space Station. Everything checked out well with this high-definition camera, unlike the post-Christmas spacewalk where there was no data stream.

But the second, medium-resolution camera did not provide good data to ground controllers after Monday's hookup.

Ryazanskiy redid the electrical connections to no avail. He spotted no damage.

"I put everything in place as it used to be, maybe even better," Ryazanskiy radioed. "I think it's much better."

But still, the data link was flawed.

"Sergey, don't overdo it there," Russian Mission Control said, warning him not to damage the connectors.

The spacewalkers worked so hard determined to accomplish the job this time that Russian Mission Control outside Moscow urged them early in the spacewalk to "get your breath."

"We'll force ourselves to rest," one of the spacewalkers replied in Russian.

The astronauts had hooked up both Earth-observing cameras during a spacewalk right after Christmas. But ground controllers received no data from either camera, and the spacewalkers had to haul everything back in.

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Astronauts repeat spacewalk to complete camera job