NASA astronauts made history twice on Friday, venturing on the final spacewalk of the agency's 30-year shuttle program and completing assembly of the $100 billion International Space Station. Astronauts Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff floated outside the orbiting outpost's Quest airlock for the fourth and final spacewalk planned during shuttle Endeavour's 16-day mission, the next to last in the US space shuttle program.
After Fincke and Chamitoff transferred the shuttle's 50-foot (15-metre) inspection boom to the station, doubling the reach of the station's robotic crane, shuttle commander Mark Kelly called Mission Control in Houston to mark the milestone - after 12 years of efforts. "Space station assembly is complete," Kelly said. It was the last spacewalk that shuttle-bound astronauts will undertake before NASA turns over Endeavour and sister ships Discovery and Atlantis to museums. Space station crew will continue to make spacewalks for maintenance and repair tasks.