Two Station Astronauts Take Spacewalk to Install Mini Robotic Arm,

[Tsiyu]

By Marcia Dunn The Associated Press
Published: Jan 26, 2005

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The two space station astronauts left their orbiting home in the hands of ground controllers Wednesday and floated outside to install an experimental robotic arm and inspect vents that might be causing air-supply equipment breakdowns.
The spacewalk - unable to be televised because of a cold station antenna - was the first in Leroy Chiao and Salizhan Sharipov's mission, now at the 3 1/2-month point.

"Hello, space, my old friend," Chiao, a veteran spacewalker, said as he exited.

A little earlier, flight controllers teased Sharipov for singing as he got ready to go out. "You could hear that, huh?" he asked with a laugh.

Because of the grounding of NASA's shuttle fleet, the international space station has been limited to two residents, one fewer than usual. As a result, no one was left inside during the spacewalk to monitor station systems - flight controllers kept tabs on things, an increasingly common practice in the wake of the Columbia disaster almost exactly two years ago.

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